The royal path of life : or, Aims and aids to success and happiness

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THE LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA
Al CHAPEL HILL

ENDOWED BY THE
DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC

SOCIETIES

BJ1581

.H15

1880

This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the
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BY

T. L. HAINES, A. M.,

AND

L. W. YAGGY, M. S.,

AUTHOR OF "OUR HOME COUNSELOR."

WESTERN PUBLISHING HOUSE, CHICAGO.

SOUTHWESTERN PUBLISHING HOUSE, NASHVILLE, TENN.
EASTERN PUBLISHING HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA, PA.
"WEVER & CO., KANSAS CITY, MO.
W. C. KINO, SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
EUREKA PUBLISHING nOUSE, SACRAMENTO, CAL.
LONE STAR PUBLISHING CO., HOUSTON, TEXAS.

1880.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by
L. W. Yaggy and T. L. Haines,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C»

The subject-matter of this book, Success and Hap-
piness, has been the consideration of every eminent pen,
from the days of Solomon to the present. To say any
thing strictly new would be impossible ; nor would we
presume that our knowledge and experience would be
as valuable as the maxims of the wise and the sublime
truths which have become a part of the standard litera-
ture. The best, therefore, that any one can expect to
do is to recombine the experience of the past, and
compile such thoughts and extracts as have chimed in
with the testimony of earnest and aspiring minds, and
offer them in a novel and fascinating form. In the words
of the poet :

" We have gathered posies from other men's flowers,
Nothing but the thread that binds them is ours."

In life there is a Royal Path. Alas! that so many
not being urged to seek life's prizes, fail to find them.
It is hoped that this book shall be a counselor to those
who have become indifferent to life's purposes ; a comfort
to those who have long traveled on this Royal Path ;
and if it shall serve to awaken the slumbering genius
within the youth, stimulate and impel them to noble
thoughts and actions, and lead them on to honor, success
and happiness, the authors will consider themselves amply
repaid for their labor.

§fou cannot tnrtn : iheif take ye up the load,
Jli?/ nonrs to tread or have the unktowq wars,
ffe must go o*c\ it, meet p? w&d pe mag.
(^i\d up gon\ souls withitf gou to the **.*d,
^nQels and $ettow=>syirits hid gou speed! "

— Butler ;

0

Life 7

Man and Woman 14

Mother 29

Children 37

Youth 41

Home 48

Family Worship 58

Home Influence 63

Home Amusements 69

To Young Men 74

To Young Women 82

Daughter and Sister 88

Associates 93

Influence 101

Habit ..102

Company _ 108

Force of Character 111

Integrity 116

Poor Boys and Eminence 120

Occupation 126

Employment 132

True Greatness 134

Idleness .137

Education 142

Opportunity i_)8

Spare Moments 150

Books 154

Reading 162

Terse verance 170

Pluck 178

Self Reliance 180

Labor 185

Energy 193

Luck and Pluck .196

Purpose and Will 207

Courage 213

Little Things 218

Economy 227

Farm Life 23$

Success 238

Industry .246

Honesty _ .249

Character 254

Principle and Right. .259

Value of Reputation .262

Fame 264

Ambition .268

Avarice 270

Gambling. 272

Temper 277

Anger __ 281

Obstinacy 287

Hypocrisy 289

Fretting and Grumbling 294

Fault Finding 299

Envy _ _ . 304

Slander 309

Vanity 315

Pride 316

Fops and Dandies. 323

Fashion 327

Dress .... , 334

VI

CONTENTS.

Church Dress 3_|o

Manners 342

The True Gentleman --350

Wit 354

Truth 357

Judgment. 362

Patience 365

Contentment -370

Cheerfulness _ 376

Happiness 382

Gratitude 385

Hope 388

Charity _ 393

Kindness .396

Friendship 403

Courtship 408

Flirting 413

Bachelors 416

Influence of Matrimony 419

Advantage of Matrimony 427

Young Men and Matrimony.. .430
Young Ladies and Matrimony. 437

Love « 444

Marriage 451

The Conjugal Relation 459

Husband and Wife ....465

Joy 474

Beauty 476

Music 483

Honor _ _ 490

Genius and Talent 492

Thinkers 497

Benefactors or Malefactors.. 503

Trials of Life 508

Sickness 512

Tears 515

Sorrow 518

Sorrowing for the Dead 526

Adversity --530

Debt 534

Failure --538

Despair ---542

Stepping-stones __ 544

Prayer 547

There is a God 552

The Bible 555

Religion --562

Immortality _ 565

Doing Good 567

Well Doing --573

Old Age 586

Death . . .......... ...-,590

THE

log a I fatlj of

We point to two ways in life, and if the young man
and maiden, whose feet are lingering in soft green
meadows and flowery - paths, will consider these two
ways soberly and earnestly, before moving onward,
and choose the one that truth and reason tell them
leads to honor, success, and happiness, they have
wisely chosen the "Royal Path of Life." The other
way is too well known to need description. It is a
sad thing, after the lapse of twenty years, to find our-
selves amid ruined hopes; — to sit down with folded
hands and say, " Thus far life has been a failure " !
Yet, to how many is this the wretched summing up
at the end of a single score of years from the time
that reason takes the helm! Alas! that so few who
start wrong, ever succeed in finding the " Royal Path";
life proving, even to its last burdened years a millstone
about the neck.

Dear reader, life is a u Royal Path," and to you it

s

LIFE.

shall be a millstone about your neck, or a diadem on
your brow. Decide at once upon a noble purpose,
then take it up bravely, bear it off joyfully, lay it down
triumphantly. Your greatest inheritance is a purpose
in pursuit of which you will find employment and hap-
piness, for

" The busy world shoves angrily aside
The man who stands with arms akimbo set
Until occasion tells him what to do ;
And he who waits to have his task marked out
Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled."

Life is not mean — it is grand. If it is mean to any?
he makes it so. God made it glorious. Its channel
He paved with diamonds. Its banks He fringed with
flowers. He overarched it with stars. Around it He
spread the glory of the physical universe — suns, moons,
worlds, constellations, systems— all that is magnificent
in motion, sublime in magnitude, and grand in order
and obedience. God would not have attended life with
this broad march of grandeur, if it did not mean some-
thing. He would not have descended to the blade
of grass, the dew-drop, and the dust-atom, if every
moment of life were not a letter to spell out some word
that should bear the burden of a thought. How much
life means, words refuse to tell, because they can not.
The very doorway of life is hung around with flowery
emblems, to indicate that it is for some purpose. The
mystery of our being, the necessity of action, the rela-
tion of cause to effect, the dependence of one thing
upon another, the mutual influence and affinity of all

LIFE.

9

things, assure us that life is for a purpose to which
every outward thing doth point.

The trees with leaves " like a shield or like a sword"
wage vigorous warfare with the elements. They bend
under the wind, make music of it, then stand up again
and grow more stalwart ly straight up toward the heart
of the heavens. A man is to learn of the oak, and
cling to his plans as it to its leaves till pushed off by
new ones; and be as tenacious of life, when lopt, send-
ing up branches straight as the old trunk, and when
cut off, sending up a brood of young oaks, crowning
the stump with vigorous defenders. He that floats
lazily down the stream, in pursuit of something borne
along by the same current, will find himself indeed
moved forward; but unless he lays his hand to the oar.,
and increases his speed by his own labor, must be-
always at the same distance from that which he is fol-
lowing. In our voyage of life we must not drift but
steer.

Every youth should form, at the outset of his career,
the solemn purpose to make the most and the best of
the powers which God has given him, and to turn to
the best possible account every outward advantage
within his reach. This purpose must carry with it the
assent of the reason, the approval of the conscience,
the sober judgment of the intellect. It should then
embody within itself whatever is vehement in desire,
inspiring in hope, thrilling in enthusiasm and intense in
desperate resolve. Such a plan of life will save him
from many a damaging contest with temptation. It
will regulate his sports and recreations. It will go*

10

LIFE.

with him by day to trample under foot the allurements
of pleasure. It will hold his eyes waking as he toils
by the evening lamp. It will watch over his slumbers
to jog him at the appointed hour, and summon him to
the cheerful duties of his chosen pursuit. Those who
labor and study under the inspiration of such a pur**
pose, will soon soar out of sight of those who barely
.allow themselves to be carried along by the momentum
of the machinery to which they are attached.

Many pass through life without even a consciousness
of where they are, and what they are doing. They
gaze on whatever lies directly before them, " in fond
amusement lost." Human life is a watchtower. It is
the clear purpose of God that every one — the young
especially — should take their stand on this tower.
Look, listen, learn, wherever you go, wherever you
tarry. Something is always transpiring to reward
your attention. Let your eyes and ears be always
open, and you will often observe, in the slightest inci-
dents, materials of advantage and means of personal
improvement.

In nothing is childhood more strongly distinguished
from manhood than in this, that the child has no pur-
pose, no plan of life, no will by which his energies are
directed. He lives, in a great measure, to enjoy the
passing scene, and to find his happiness in those agree-
able consciousnesses which from hour to hour, come to
him by chance. If his life is governed by a plan, a
purpose, it is the purpose of another — not his own.
The man has his own purpose, his own plan, his own
life and aim. The sorrowful experience of multitudes

LIFE.

11

in this respect is that they are never men, but children
all their days. Think out your work, then work out
your thought. No one can pursue a worthy object,
with all the powers of his mind, and yet make his life
a failure. A man may work in the dark, yet one day
light shall arise upon his labor; and though he may
never, with his own lips, declare the victory complete,
some day others will behold in his life-work the traces
of a great and thinking mind.

Take life lika a man. Take it just as though it
was — as it is — an earnest, vital, essential affair. Take
it just as though you personally were born to the task
of performing a merry part in it — as though the world
had waited for your coming. Take it as though it was
a grand opportunity to do and to achieve, to carry
forward great and good schemes; to help and cheer
a suffering, weary, it may be a heart-broken, brother.
The fact is, life is undervalued by a great majority of
mankind. It is not made half as much of as should be
the case. Now and then a man stands aside from the
crowd, labors earnestly, steadfastly, confidently, and
straightway becomes famous for wisdom, intellect,
skill, greatness of some sort. The world wonders,
admires, idolizes; and yet it only illustrates what each
may do if he takes hold of life with a purpose. One
way is right to go: the hero sees it and moves on that
aim and has the world under him for foot and support.
His approbation is honor, his dissent infamy. Man was
sent into the world to be a growing and exhaustless
force. The world was spread out around him to be
seized and conquered. Realms of infinite truth burst

12

LIFE.

open above him, inviting him to tread those shining-
coasts along which Newton dropped his plummet and
Herschel sailed, — a Columbus of the skies. Somey
because they have once or twice met with rebuffs, sink
in discouragement. Such should know, that our own
errors may often teach us more than the grave pre-
cepts of others. We counsel the young man never
to despair. If he can make nothing by any work that
presents itself now, he can at least make himself; or,
what is equivalent, he can save himself from the
sure death of a pusillanimous, halting, irresolute spirit.
Never be cast down by misfortunes. If a spider break
his web, over and over he will mend it again. And
do not you fall behind the very insect on your walls.
If the sun is going down, look up to the stars; if earth
is dark, keep your eye on heaven. With the presence
and promise of God, we can bear up under any thing;
and should press on, and never falter or fear.

It is my firm conviction that man has only himself
to blame if his life appears to him at any time void of
interest and of pleasure. Man may make life what he
pleases and give it as much worth, both for himself
and others, as he has energy for. Over his moral and
intellectual being his sway is complete.

The first great mistake that men fall into is that
they do not use integrity and truth and good sense
in judging of what they are fit for. They take the
things that they want, and not the things that they
deserve. They aspire after things that are pleasing
to their ambition, and not after things to which they
are adapted by their capacity. And when a man is

LIFE.

13

brought into a sphere of his ambition for which he
has not the requisite powers, and where he is goaded
on every side in the discharge of his duties, his tempt-
ation is at once to make up by fraud and appearance
that which he lacks in reality. Men are seen going
across-lots to fortune; and a poor business many of
them make of it. Oftentimes they lose their way;
and when they do not, they find so many hills and
valleys, so many swells and depressions, so many ris-
ings and fallings, so many ups and downs, that though
by an air-line the distance might be shorter, in reality
the distance is greater than by the lawful route; and
when they come back they are ragged and poor and
mean. There is a great deal of going across-lots to
make a beggar of a man's self in this world. Whereas,
the old-fashioned homely law that the man who was to
establish himself in life must take time to lay the foun-
dations of reality, and gradually and steadily build
thereon, holds good yet. Though you slur it over,
and cover it up with fantasies, and find it almost impos-
sible to believe it, it is so.

Rely not upon others ; but let there be in your own
bosom a calm, deep, decided, and all-pervading prin-
ciple. Look first, midst, and last to God, to aid you
in the great task before you; and then plant your foot
on the right. Let others live as they please, — tainted
by low tastes, debasing passions, a moral putrefaction.
Be you the salt of the earth; incorrupt in your deeds,
in your inmost thoughts and feelings. Nay more,
incorruptible, like virtue herself; your manners blame-
less; your views of duty, not narrow, false, and destruc-

14

MAN AND WOMAN.

tive, but a savor of life to all around you. Let your
speech be always with grace, seasoned with the salt of
truth, honor, manliness, and benevolence. Wait not
for the lash of guilt to scourge you to the path of God
and heaven. Be of the prudent who foresee the evil
and hide themselves from it; and not of the simple,
who pass on and are punished. Life, to youth, is a
fairy tale just opened; to old age, a tale read through,
ending in death. Be wise in time, that you may be
happy in eternity.

IPum ami WSLomwu

Man is bold — woman is beautiful. Man is coura-
geous— woman is timid. Man labors in the field —
woman at home. Man talks to persuade — woman to
please. Man has a daring heart — woman a tender,
loving one. Man has power — woman taste. Man has
justice — woman has mercy. Man has strength —
woman love; while man combats with the enemy,
struggles with the world, woman is waiting to prepare
his repast and sweeten his existence. He has crosses,
and the partner of his couch is there to soften them ;
his days may be sad and troubled, but in the chaste
arms of his wife he finds comfort and repose. Without
woman, man would be rude, gross, solitary. Woman
spreads around him the fiowers of existence, as the
creepers of the forests, which decorate the trunks of
sturdy oaks with their perfumed garlands. Finally, the

MAN AND WOMAN.

Christian pair live and die united; together they rear
the fruits of their union; in the dust they lie side by
side; and they are reunited beyond the limits of the
tomb.

Man has his strength and the exercise of his power;,
he is busy, goes about, occupies his attention, thinks,,
looks forward to the future, and finds consolation
in it; but woman stays at home, remains face to face
with her sorrow, from which nothing distracts her; she
descends to the very depths of the abyss it has openedy
measures it, and often fills it with her vows and tears..
To feel, to love, to suffer, to devote herself, will always,
be the text of the life of woman. Man has a precise-
and distinct language, the word being luminous speech.
Woman possesses a peculiarly musical and magical
language, interspersing the words with song. Woman
is affectionate and suffers; she is constantly in need of
something to lean upon, like the honeysuckle upon the
tree or fence. Man is attached to the fireside, by his
affection for her, and the happiness it gives him to pro-
tect and support her. Superior and inferior to man,
humiliated by the heavy hand of nature, but at the
same time inspired by intuitions of a higher order than
man can ever experience, she has fascinated him, inno-
cently bewitched him forever. And man has remained
enchanted by the spell. Women are generally better
creatures than men. Perhaps they have, taken univer-
sally, weaker appetites and weaker intellects, but they
have much stronger affections. A man with a bad
heart has been sometimes saved by a strong head; but
a corrupt woman is lost forever.

16

MAN AND WOMAN.

One has well said: "We will say nothing of the
manner in which that sex usually conduct an argument;
but the intuitive judgments of women are often more to
be relied upon than the conclusions which we reach by
an elaborate process of reasoning. No man that has
an intelligent wife, or who is accustomed to the society
of educated women, will dispute this. Times without
number, you must have known them decide questions
on the instant, and with unerring accuracy, which you
had been poring over for hours, perhaps, with no other
result than to find yourself getting deeper and deeper
into the tangled maze of doubts and difficulties. It
were hardly generous to allege that they achieve these
feats less by reasoning than by a sort of sagacity which
approximates to the sure instinct of the animal races;
and yet, there seems to be some ground for the remark
of a witty French writer, that, when a man has toiled
step by step up a flight of stairs, he will be sure to find
a woman at the top; but she will not be able to tell
Jioiv she got there. How she got there, however, is of
little moment."

It is peculiar with what a degree of tact woman will
determine whether a man is honest or not. She cannot
give }'cu the reason for such an opinion, only that she
does not like the looks of the man. and feels that he is
dishonest. A servant comes for employment, she looks
him in the face and says he is dishonest. He gives
good references, and you employ him; he robs you —
you may be quite sure he will do that. Years after,
another man comes; the same lady looks him in the
face, and says he, too, is not honest; she says so, again,

MAN AND WOMAN.

17

fresh from her mere insight; but you, also, say he is not
honest. You say, I remember I had a servant with just
the same look about him, three years ago, and he
robbed me. This is one great distinetion of the female
intellect ; it walks directly and unconsciously, by more
delicate insight and a more refined and a more trusted
intuition, to an end to which men's minds grope care-
fully and ploddingly along. Women have exercised a
most beneficial influence in softening the hard and un-
truthful outline which knowledge is apt to assume in the
hands of direct scientific observers and experimenters;
they have prevented the casting aside of a mass of most
valuable truth, which is too fine to be caught in the
material sieve, and eludes the closest questioning of the
microscope and the test-glass; which is allied with our
passions, our feelings; and especially holds the fine
boundary -line where mind and matter, sense and spirit,
wave their floating and undistinguishable boundaries,
and exercise their complex action and reaction.

When a woman is possessed of a high degree of tact,
she sees, as by a kind of second sight, when any little
emergency is likely to occur, or when, to use a more
familiar expression, things do not seem to go right.
She is thus aware of any sudden turn in conversation,
and prepared for what it may lead to; but above all,
she can penetrate into the state of mind of those she is
placed in contact with, so as to detect the gathering
gloom upon another's brow, before the mental storm
shall have reached any formidable height; to know
when the tone of voice has altered; when any unwel-
come thought shall have presented itself, and when the
»/. ■ .2

18

MAN AND WOMAN.

pulse of feeling is beating higher or lower, in conse-
quence of some apparently trifling circumstance which
has just transpired. In such and innumerable other
instances of much the same character, woman, with her
tact, will notice clearly the fluctuations which constantly
change the feeling of social life, and she can change the
current of feeling suddenly and in such a way that no
one detects her; thus, by the power which her nature
gives her, she saves society the pain and annoyance
which arise very frequently from trifles, or the mis-
management of some one possessing less tact and social
adaptation.

Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His
nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of
the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early
life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He
seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the world's
thought, and dominion over his fellow-men. But a
woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The
heart is her world ; it is there her ambition strives for
empire ; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures.
She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she em-
barks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if
shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is the bank-
ruptcy of the heart.

To a man, the disappointment of love may occasion
some bitter pangs; it wounds some feelings of tender-
ness; it blasts some prospects of felicity; but he is an
active being; he may dissipate his thoughts in the
whirl of varied occupation, or may plunge into the tide
of pleasure; or, if the scene of disappointment be too

MAN AND WOMAN.

19

full of painful associations, he can shift his abode at
will, and taking, as it were, the wings of morning, can
"fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, and be at rest."

We find man the cap stone of the climax of para-
doxes; a complex budget of contradictions; a hetero'
geneous compound of good and evil; the noblest work
of God, bespattered by Lucifer; an immortal being,
cleaving to things not eternal; a rational being, viola-
ting reason; an animal with discretion, glutting, instead
of prudently feeding appetite; an original harmonious
compact, violating order ar.d revelling in confusion.
Man is immortal without realizing it; rational, but
often deaf to reason; an animal, transgressing the law
of appetite; a combination of noble powers, waging
civil war, robbing, instead of aiding each other; yet,
like the Siamese twins, compelled to remain in the same
apartment. They were created allies, to promote their
own. happiness and the glory of their king; but Beelze-
bub, the first rebel against heaven, has made them con-
spirators. Appetite is led astray by pleasure; they
first stupefy, then dethrone reason; immortality becomes
paralyzed, and loses sight of things eternal — stupefied
reason and voracious appetite run riot, and depose the
soul, all these fall into the ditch together — the natural
consequence of violating the law of common sense,
reason, and revelation.

The following shows the love, tenderness, and forti-
tude of woman. The letter, which was bedimmed
with tears, was written before the husband was aware
that death was fixing its grasp upon the lovely com-
panion, and laid in a book which he was wont to peruse:

20

MAN AND W03IAN.

" When this shall reach your eyes, dear G , some

day when you are turning over the relics of the past, I
shall have passed away forever, and the cold white
stone will be keeping its lonely watch over lips you
have so often pressed, and the sod will be growing
green that shall hide forever from your sight the dust
of one who has so often nestled close to your warm
heart. For many long and sleepless nights, when all
my thoughts were at rest, I have wrestled with the
consciousness of approaching death, until at last it has
forced itself on my mind. Although to you and to
others it might now seem but the nervous imagination

of a girl, yet, dear G , it is so ! Many weary hours

have I passed in the endeavor to reconcile myself to
leaving you, whom I love so well, and this bright world
of sunshine and beauty; and hard indeed is it to strug-
gle on silently and alone, with the sure conviction that
I am about to leave forever and .^o down alone into the
dark valley. 'But I know in; whom I have trusted,'
and leaning upon His arm, 'I fear no evil.1 Don't
blame me for keeping even all this from you. How
could I subject you, of all others, to such a sorrow as I
feel at parting, when time will soon make it apparent
to you? I could have wished to live, if only to be at
your side when your time shall come, and pillowing
your 'head upon my breast, wipe the death damps from
your brow, and commend your departing spirit to its
Maker's presence, embalmed in woman's holiest prayer.
But it is not to be so; and I submit. Yours is the
privilege of watching, through long and dreary nights,
for the spirit's final flight, and of transferring my sink-

MAN AND WOMAN.

21

ing head from your breast to my Savior's bosom ! And
you shall share my last thought, the last faint pressure
of my hand, and the last feeble kiss shall be yours; and
even when flesh and heart shall have failed me, nry eye
shall rest on yours until glazed by death ; and our spirits
shall hold one fast communion, until gently fading from
my view, the last of earth, you shall mingle with the
first bright glimpses of the unfading glories of that
better world, where partings are unknown. Well do I

know the spot, dear G , where you will lay me; often

have we stood by the place, as we watched the mellow
sunset, as it glanced its quivering flashes through the
leaves, and burnished the grassy mounds around us with
stripes of gold. Each perhaps has thought that one of
us would come alone; and whichever it might be, your
name would be on the stone. We loved the spot, and
I know you'll love it none the less when you see the
same quiet sunlight and gentle breezes play among the
grass that grows over your Mary's grave. I know
you'll go often alone there, when I am laid there, and
my spirit shall be with you then, and whisper among
the waving branches, 'I am not lost, but gone before.' "
A woman has no natural gift more bewitching than
a sweet laugh. It is like the sound of flutes upon the
water. It leads from her in a clear sparkling rill; and
the heart that hears it feels as if bathed in the cool,
exhilarating spring. Have you ever pursued an unseen
figure through the trees, led on by a fairy laugh, now
here, now there, now lost, now found? We have. And
we are pursuing that wandering voice to this day.
Sometimes it comes to us in the midst of care and sor-

22

MAN AND WOMAN.

row, or irksome business, and then we turn away and
listen, and hear it ringing throughout the room like a
silver bell, with power to scare away the evil spirits of
the mind. How much we owe to that sweet laugh ! It
turns prose to poetry ; it flings showers of sunshine over
the darkness of the wood in which we are traveling.

Quincy' being asked why there were more women
than men, replied, "It is in conformity with the arrange-
ments of nature. We always see more of heaven than
of earth." He cannot be an unhappy man who has the
love and smile of woman to accompany him in every
department of life. The world may look dark and
cheerless without — enemies may gather in his path —
but when he returns to his fireside, and feels the tender
love of woman, he forgets his cares and troubles, and is
comparatively a happy man. He is but half prepared
for the journey of life, who takes not with him that
friend who will forsake him in no emergency — who
will divide his sorrows — increase his joys — lift the veil
from his heart — and throw sunshine amid the darkest
scenes. No, that man cannot be miserable who has
such a companion, be he ever so poor, despised, and
trodden upon by the world. No trait of character is
more valuable in a female than the possession of a sweet
temper. Home can never be made happy without it.
It is like the flowers that spring up in our pathway >
reviving and cheering us. Let a man go home at nighty
wearied and worn by the toils of the day, and how
soothing is a word by a good disposition! It is sun-
shine falling on his heart. He is happy, and the cares
of life are forgotten. Nothing can be more touching

MAN AND WOMAN.

23

than to behold a woman who had been all tenderness
and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness
while treacling the prosperous path of life, suddenly
rising in mental force to be the comforter and supporter
of her husband under misfortune, and abiding with
unshrinking firmness the bitterest winds of adversity.
As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage
about the oak, and been lifted by it in sunshine, will,
when the hardy plant is rived by the thunderbolt, cling
round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its
shattered boughs. So it is beautifully ordained that
woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of
man in happiest hours, should be his stay and solace
when smitten by sudden calamity.

A woman of true intelligence is a blessing at home,
in her circle of friends, and in society. Wherever she
goes, she carries with her a healthgiving influence.
There is a beautiful harmony about her character that
at once inspires a respect which soon warms into love.
The influence of such a woman upon society is of the
most salutary kind. She strengthens right principles in
the virtuous, incites the selfish and indifferent to good
actions, and gives to even the light and frivolous a taste
for food more substantial than the frothy gossip with
which they seek to recreate their minds.

Thackeray says: "It is better for you to pass an
evening once or twice a week in a lady's drawing-room,
even though the conversation is slow, and you know the
girl's song by heart, than in a club, a tavern, or a pit
of a theater. All amusements of youth to which virtu-
ous women are not admitted, rely on it, are deleterious

24

MAN AND WOMAN.

in their nature. All men who avoid female society have
dull perceptions, and are stupid, or have gross tastes,
and revolt against what is pure. Your club swag-
gerers, who are sucking the butts of billiard cues all
night, call female society insipid. Poetry is uninspiring
to a jockey; beauty has no charms for a blind man;
music does not please a poor beast who does not know
one tune from another; but as a pure epicure is hardly
tired of water, sauces, and brown bread and butter, I
protest I can sit for a whole evening talking with a well
regulated, kindly woman about her girl Fanny, or her
boy Frank, and like the evening's entertainment. One
of the great benefits a man may derive from a woman's
society is that he is bound to be respectful to her. The
habit is of great good to your moral men, depend upon
it. Our education makes us the most eminently selfish
men in the world.'"

Tom. Hood, in writing to his wife, says : " I never was
anything till I knew you; and I have been better, hap-
pier, and a more prosperous man ever since. Lay that
truth by in lavender, and remind me of it when I fail.
I am writing fondly and warmly ; but not without good
cause. First, your own affectionate letter, lately re-
ceived; next, the remembrance of our dear children,
pledges of our old familiar love; then a delicious im-
pulse to pour out the overflowings of my heart into
yours; and last, not least, the knowledge that your dear
eyes will read what my hands are now writing. Per-
haps there is an after-thought that, whatever may befall
me, the wife of nry bosom will have this acknowledg-

MAN A KB WOMAN.

25

ment of her tenderness, worth and excellence, of all that
is wifely or womanly, from nry pen."

I have observed among all nations that the women
ornament themselves more than the men; that wherever
found, they are the same kind, civil, obliging, humane,
tender beings; that the}7 are ever inclined to be gay
and cheerful, timorous and modest. They do not hesi-
tate like a man, to perform any hospitable or generous
action; not haughty or arrogant, or supercilious, but
full of courtesy, and fond of society, industrious, eco-
nomical, ingenious, more liable, in general, to err than
man, but, in general, also, more virtuous, and perform-
ing more good actions than he.

The gentle tendrils of woman's heart sometimes
twine around a proud and sinful spirit, like roses and
honeysuckles around a lightning-rod, clinging for sup-
port to what brings down upon them the blasting
thunderbolt.

These are the national traits of woman's character:
The English woman is respectful and proud ; the
French woman is gay and agreeable ; the Italian is
ardent and passionate ; the American is sincere and
affectionate. With an English woman love is a prin-
— ciple ; with a French woman it is a caprice ; with an
Italian it is a passion; with an American it is a senti-
ment. A man is married to an English lady; united
to a French woman; cohabits with an Italian; and is
wedded to an American. An English woman is anx-
ious to secure a lord; a French woman, a companion;
an Italian, a lover: an American, a husband. The
Englishman respects his lady; the Frenchman esteems

26

MAN AND WOMAN

his companion; the Italian adores his mistress; the
American loves his wife. At night the Englishman
returns to his house; the Frenchman to his establish-
ment; the Italian to his retreat; the American to his
home. When an Englishman is sick, his lady visits
him; when a Frenchman is sick, his companion pities
nim; when an Italian is sick, his mistress sighs over
him; when an American is sick, his wife nurses him.
When an Englishman dies, his lad}7 is bereaved; when
a Frenchman dies, his companion grieves; when an
Italian dies, his mistress laments; when an American
dies, his wife mourns. An English woman instructs
her offspring; a French woman teaches her progeny;
an Italian rears her }Toung; an American educates her
child.

The true lady is known wherever you meet her.
Ten women shall get into the street car or omnibus,
and, though we never saw them, we shall point out the
true lady. She does not giggle constantly at every
little thing that transpires, or does some one appear
with a peculiar dress, it does not throw her into con-
fusion. She wears no flowered brocade to be trodden
under foot, nor ball-room jewehy, nor rose-tinted
gloves; but the lace frill round her face is scrupulously
fresh, and the strings under her chin have evidently
been handled only by dainty ringers. She makes no
parade of a watch, if she wears one; nor does she draw
off her dark, neatly-fitting glove to display ostentatious
rings. Still we notice, nestling in the straw beneath us,
such a trim little boot, not paper soled, but of an anti-
consumption thickness; the bonnet upon her head is of

MAN AND WOMAN.

27

plain straw, simply trimmed, for your true lady never
wears a ki dress hat" in an omnibus. She is quite as
civil to the -poorest as to the richest person who sits
beside her, and equally regardful of their rights. If
she attracts attention, it is by the unconscious grace of
her person and manner, not by the ostentation of her
dress. We are quite sorry when she pulls the strap
and disappears; if we were a bachelor we should go
home to our solitary den with a resolution to become a
better and a — married man. The strongest man feels
the influence of woman's gentlest thoughts, as the
mightiest oak quivers in the softest breeze. We con-
fess to a great distrust of that man who persistently
underrates woman. Never did language better apply
to an adjective than when she called the wife the "bet-
ter-half' We admire the ladies because of their beauty,
respect them because of their virtues, adore them be-
cause of their intelligence, and love them because tve
carft help it.

Man was made to protect, love and cherish, not to
undervalue, neglect, or abuse woman. Treated, edu-
cated and esteemed, as she merits, she rises in dignity,
becomes the refiner, and imparts a milder, softer tone
to man. No community has ever exhibited the refine-
ments of civilization and social order where women
w^ere held in contempt and their rights not properly
respected and preserved. Degrade woman and you
degrade man more. She is the fluid of the thermom-
eter of society, placed there by the hand of the great
Creator. Man may injure the instrument, but can
neither destroy or provide a substitute for the mercury.

28

MAN AND WOMAN.

Her rights are as sacred as those of the male sex. Her
mental powers are underrated by those only who have
either not seen, or were so blinded by prejudice, that
they would not see their development. Educate girls
as boys, put women in the business arena designed for
men, and they will acquit themselves far better than
bo}^s and men would, if they were placed in the depart-
ments designed for females.

As a species, the perception of woman, especially in
cases of emergency, is more icute than that of the
male species; unquestionably so designed by an all-wise
Creator for the preservation and perpetuity of our race.
Her patience and fortitude, her integrity and constancy,
her piety and devotion, are naturally stronger than in
the other sex. If she was first in transgression, she was
first in the breach. Her seed has bruised the serpent's
head. She stood by the expiring Jesus, when boasting
Peter and the other disciples had forsaken their Lord.
She was the last at his tomb, embalmed his sacred
body, and the first to discover that he had burst the
bars of death, risen from the cleft rock, and triumphed
over death and the grave.

Under affliction, especially physical, the fortitude of
woman is proverbial. As a nurse, one female will en-
dure more than five men. That she is more honest
than man, our penitentiaries fully demonstrate. That
she is more religiously inclined, the records of our
churches will show. That she is more devotional, our
prayer meetings will prove.

Women have exercised a most remarkable judgment
in regard to great issues. The}' have prevented the

MOTHER.

29

casting aside of plans which led to very remarkable
discoveries and inventions. When Columbus laid a plan
to discover the new world, he could not get a hearing
till he applied to a woman for help. Woman equips
man for the voyage of life. She is seldom a leader in
any prospect but meets her peculiar and best altitude as
helper. Though man executes a project, she fits him
for it, beginning in his childhood. A man discovered
America, but a woman equipped the voyage. So every-
where; man executes the performances, but woman
trains the man. Every effectual person, leaving his
mark on the world, is but another Columbus, for whose
furnishing some Isabella, in the form of his mother, lays
down her jewelry, her vanities, her comforts.

It is true to nature, although it be expressed in a
figurative form, that a mother is both the morning and
the evening star of life. The light of her eye is always
the first to rise, and often the last to set upon man's day
of trial. She wields a power rrkrre decisive Tar than
s}'llogisms in argument, or courts of last appeal in au-
thority7. Nay, in cases not a few, where there has been
no fear of God before the eyes of the young — where
His love has been unfelt and His law outraged, a
mother's affection or her tremulous tenderness has held
transgressors by the heart-strings, and been the means
of leading them back to virtue and to God,

30

MOTHER.

Woman's charms are certainly many and powerful
The expanding rose, just bursting into beauty, has an
irresistible bewitchingness ; — the blooming bride, led
triumphantly to the hymeneal altar, awakens admiration
and interest, and the blush of her cheek fills with de-
light;— but the charm of maternity is more sublime
than all these. .

Heaven has imprinted in the mother's face something
beyond this world, something which claims kindred
with the skies — the angelic smile, the tender look, the
waking, watchful eye, which keeps its fond vigil over
her slumbering babe.

Mother! ecstatic sound so twined round our hearts
that they must cease to throb ere we forget it ! 'tis our
first love; 'tis part of religion. Nature has set the
mother upon such a pinnacle, that our infant eyes and
arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood;
wre almost worship it in old age. He who can enter
an apartment and behold the tender babe feeding on
its mother's beauty — nourished by the tide of life
which flows through her generous veins, without a
panting bosom and a grateful eye, is no man, but a
monster.

"Can a mother's love be supplied?" No! a thou-
sand times no! By the deep, earnest yearning of 1113'
spirit for a mother's love; by the weary, aching void in
my heart ; by the restless, unsatisfied wanderings of -my
affections, ever seeking an object on which to rest; by
our instinctive discernment of the true maternal love
from the false — as we would discern between a lifeless
statue and a breathing man; by the hallo wed emotions

MOTHER,

31

with which we cherish in the depths of our hearts the
vision of a grass-grown mound in a quiet graveyard
among the mountains ; by the reverence, the holy love,
the feeling akin to idolatry with which our thoughts
hover about an angel form among the seraphs of
Heaven — by all these, we answer, no!

Often do I sigh in my struggles with the hard, uncar-
ing world, for the sweet, deep security 1 felt when, of
an evening, nestling in her bosom, I listened to some
quiet tale, suitable to my age. read in her tender and
untiring voice. Never can I forget her sweet glance
cast upon me when I appeared asleep; never her kiss
of peace at night. Years have passed away since we
laid her beside my father in the old church-yard; yet,
still her voice whispers from the grave, and her eye
watches over me, as I visit spots long since hallowed to
the memory of my mother.

Oli! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a
mother to her son that transcends all other affections of
the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor
daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness,
nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every
comfort to his convenience: she will surrender every
pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame
and exult in his prosperity; and if misfortune overtake
him, he will be the dearer to her from misfortune; and
if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and
cherish him in spite of his disgrace ; and if all the world
beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him.

Alas! how little do we appreciate a mother's tender-
ness while living. How heedless are we in youth of all

4

32

MOTHER.

her anxieties and kindness? But when she is dead and
gone, when the cares and coldness of the world come
withering to our hearts, when we experience how hard
it is to find true sympathy, how few to love us for our-
selves, how few will befriend us in misfortune, then it is
that we think of the mother we have lost.

Over the grave of a friend, of a brother, or a sister,
I would plant the primrose, emblematical of youth; but
over that of a mother, I would let the green grass
shoot up unmolested, for there is something in the
simple covering which nature spreads upon the grave,
that well becomes the abiding place of decaying age.
G\ a mother's grave! Earth has some sacred spots,
where we feel like loosing shoes from our feet, and
treading with reverence; where common words of
social converse seem rude, and friendship's hands have
lingered in each other; where vows have been plighted,
prayers offered, and tears of parting shed. Oh! how
thoughts hover around such places, and travel back
through unmeasured space to visit them! But of all
spots on this green earth none is so sacred as that
where rests, waiting the resurrection, those we have
once loved and cherished — our brothers, or our chil-
dren. Hence, in all ages, the better part of mankind
have chosen and loved spots of the dead, and on these
spots they have loved to wander at eventide. But of
all places, even among the charnel-houses of the dead,
none is so sacred as a mother's grave. There sleeps
the nurse of infancy, the guide of our youth, the coun-
selor of our riper years — our friend when others
deserted us; she whose heart was a stranger to every

MOTHER.

33

other feeling but love — there she sleeps and we love
the very earth for her sake.

In what Christian eountry can we deny the influence
which a mother exerts over the whole life of her chil-
dren. The roughest and hardest wanderer, while he
is tossed on the ocean, or while he scorches his feet on
the desert sands, recurs in his loneliness and suffering
to the smiles which maternal affection shed over his
infancy; the reckless sinner, even in his hardened
career, occasionally hears the whisperings of those
holy precepts instilled by a virtuous mother, and,
although they may, in the fullness of guilt, be neg-
lected, there are many instances of their having so
stung the conscience, that they have led to a deep and
lasting repentance; the erring child of either sex will
then, if a mother yet exists, turn to her for that conso-
lation wrhich the laws of society deny, and in the last-
ing purity of a mother's love will find the way to
heaven. How cheerfully does a virtuous son labor for
a poverty-stricken mother! How alive is he to her
honor and high standing in the world! And should
that mother be deserted — be left in " worse than wid-
owhood," how proudly he stands forth her comforter
and protector! Indeed, the more we reflect upon the
subject, the more entirely are we convinced, that no
influence is so lasting, or of such wide extent, and the
more extensively we do feel the necessity of guiding
this sacred affection, and perfecting that being from
whom it emanates.

Science has sometimes tried to teach us that if a
pebble be cast into the sea on any shore, the effects are
3

34

MOTHER.

felt, though not perceived by man, over the whole area
of the ocean. Or, more wonderful still, science has
tried to show that the effects of all the sounds ever
uttered by man or beast, or caused by inanimate things,
are still floating in the air: its present state is just the
aggregate result of all these sounds ; and if these things
be true, they famish an emblem of the effects produced
by a mother's power — erfects which stretch into eter-
nity, and operate there forever, in sorrow or in joy.

The mother can take man's whole nature under her
control. She becomes what she has been called, "The
Divinity of Infancy.'" Her smile is its. sunshine, her
word its mildest law, until sin and the world have
steeled the heart. She can shower around her the
most genial of all influences, and from the time when
she first laps her little one in Elysium by clasping him
to her bosom — " its first paradise" — to the moment
when that child is independent of her aid, or perhaps,
like Washington, directs the destinies of millions, her
smile, her word, her wish, is an inspiring force. A
sentence of encouragement or praise is a joy for a day.
It spreads light upon all faces, and renders a mother's
power more and more charm-like, as surely as cease-
less accusing, rebuking, and correcting, chafes, sours,
and disgusts. So intense is her power that the mere
remembrance of a praying mother's hand, laid on the
head in infancy, has held back a son from guilt when
passion had waxed strong.

The mother is the angel-spirit of home. Her tender
yearnings over the cradle of her infant babe, her guar-
dian care of the child and youth, and her bosom com-

MOTHER.

35

panionship with the man of her lovre and choice, make
her the personal center of the interests, the hopes and
the happiness of the family!! Her love glows in her
sympathies and reigns in all her thoughts and deeds.
It never cools, never tires, never dreads, never sleeps,
but ever glows and burns with increasing ardor, and
with sweet and holy incense upon the altar of home-
devotion. And even when she is gone to her last rest,
the sainted mother in heaven sways a mightier influ-
ence over her wayward husband or child, than when
she was present. Her departed spirit still hovers over
his affections, overshadows his path, and draws him by
unseen cords to herself in heaven.

But in glancing at a mother's position in our homes>
we should not overlook the sorrows to which she is
often exposed. A mother mourning by the grave of her
first-born is a spectacle of woe. A mother watching
the palpitating frame of her child, as life ebbs slowly
away, must evoke the sympathy of the sternest. A
mother closing the dying eye of child after child, till it
seems as if she were to be left alone in the world again,
is one of the saddest sights of earth: when the cradle-
song passes into a dirge, the heart is laden indeed.

Not long ago two friends were sitting together en-
gaged in letter writing. One was a young man from
India, the other a female friend part of whose family
resided in that far-off land. The former was writing
to his mother in India. When the letter was finished
his friend offered to enclose it in hers, to save postage.
This he politely declined, saying: "If it be sent sepa-
rately, it will reach her sooner than if sent through a

36

MOTHER.

friend; and, perhaps, it may save her a tear." His
friend was touched at his tender regard for his mother's
feelings, and felt with him, that it was worth paying the
postage to save his mother a tear. Would that every
boy and girl, every young man and every young
woman were equally saving of a mother's tears.

The Christian mother especially can deeply plant and
genially cherish the seeds of truth. Is her child sick?
that is a text from which to speak of the Great Physician.
Is it the sober calm of evening, when even children grow
sedate? She can tell of the Home where there is
no night. Is it morning, when all are buoyantly happy ?
The eternal day is suggested, and its glories may be
told. That is the wisdom which wins souls even more
than the formal lesson, the lecture, or the task.

There is one suggestion more. Perhaps the saddest
sentence that can fall upon the ear regarding any child
is — "He has no mother; she is dead!" It comes like
a voice from the sepulchre, and involves the consumma-
tion of all the sorrows that can befall the young. In
that condition they are deprived of their most tender
comforter, and their wisest counselor. They are left a
prey to a thousand temptations or a thousand ills, and
freed from the restraint of one who could curb without
irritating, or guide without affecting superiority. Now
will mothers live with their children as if they were
thus to leave them in a cold and inhospitable world?
Will they guide their little ones to Him who is pre-
eminently the God of the orphan, and who inspired his
servant to say — "Though father and mother forsake
me, the Lord will take me up."

CHILDREN.

37

Woe to him who smiles not over a cradle, and weeps
not over a tomb. He who has never tried the compan-
ionship of a little child, has carelessly passed by one of
the greatest pleasures of life, as one passes a rare flower
without plucking it or knowing its value. The gleeful
laugh of happy children is the best home music, and
the graceful figures of childhood are the best statuary.
We are all kings and queens in the cradle, and each
babe is a new marvel, a new miracle. The perfection
of the providence for childhood is easily acknowledged.
The care which covers the seed of the tree under tough
husks, and stony cases provides for the human plant,
the mother's breast and the father's house. The size
of the nestler is comic, and its tiny, beseeching weak-
ness is compensated perfectly by the one happy, patron-
izing look of the mother, who is a sort of high-reposing
Providence to it. Welcome to the parents the puny
struggler, strong in his weakness, his little arms more
irresistible than the soldier's, his lips touched with per-
suasion which Chatham and Pericles in manhood had
not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his
voice on high; or, more beautiful, the sobbing child —
the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow his vexa-
tion— soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful and
clamorous compassion. The small despot asks so little
that all reason and all nature are on his side. His
ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and
his little sins more bewitching than any virtue. His
flesh is angel's flesh, all alive. "Infancy," said Cole-

38

CHILDREN.

ridge, " presents body and spirit in unity; the body is
all animated." All day, between his three or four-
sleeps, he coos like a pigeon-house, sputters and spurs>.
and puts on his faces of importance, and when he fasts,
the little Pharisee fails not to sound his trumpet before
him. By lamplight, he delights in shadows on the
wall; by daylight, in yellow and scarlet. Carry him.
out of doors — he is overpowered by the light and by
the extent of natural objects, and is silent. Then pres-
ently begins his use of his fingers, and he studies power
— the lesson of his race.

Not without design has God implanted in the mater-
nal breast that strong love of their children which is
felt everywhere. This lays deep and broad the founda-
tion for the child's future education from parental hands..
Nor without designs has Christ commanded, "Feed
my lambs," — meaning to inculcate upon his church the-
duty of caring for the children of the church and the
world at the earliest possible period. Nor can parents
and all well-wishers to humanity be too earnest and
careful to fulfill the promptings of their very nature and
the command of Christ in this matter. Influence is as
quiet and imperceptible on the child's mind as the fall-
ing of snowflakes on the meadow. One cannot tell the
hour when the human mind is not in the condition of
receiving impressions from exterior moral forces. In
innumerable instances, the most secret and unnoticed
influences have been in operation for months and even
years to break down the strongest barriers of the human
heart, and work out its moral ruin, while yet the fondest
parents and friends have been unaware of the working"

CHILDREN.

3#

of such unseen agents of evil. Not all at once does
any heart become utterly bad. The error is in this:
that parents are not conscious how early the seeds of
vice are sown and take root. It is as the Gospel de-
clares, "While men slept, the enemy came and sowed
tares, and went his way." If this then is the error,
how shall it be corrected, and what is the antidote to
be applied!

Never scold children, but soberly and quietly reprove.
Do not employ shame except in extreme cases. The
suffering is acute; it hurts self-respect in the child to
reprove a child before the family; to ridicule it, to tread
down its feelings ruthlessly, is to wake in its bosom:
malignant feelings. A child is defenseless; he is not
allowed to argue. He is often tried, condemned, and
executed in a second. He finds himself of little use.
He is put at things he don't care for, and withheld from
things which he does like. He is made the convenience
of grown-up people; is hardly supposed to have any
rights, except in a corner, as it were; is sent hither and
thither; made to get up or sit down for everybody's
convenience but his own; is snubbed and catechised
until he learns to dodge government and elude author-
ity, and then be whipped for being "such a liar that no
one can believe you."

They will not trouble you long. Children grow up —
nothing on earth grows so fast as children. It was but
yesterday, and that lad was playing with tops, a buoy-
ant bo}^. He is a man, and gone now! There is no
more childhood for him or for us. Life has claimed
him. When a beginning is made, it is like a raveling

40

CHILDREN.

stocking; stitch by stitch gives way till all are gone.
The house has not a child in it — there is no more noise
in the hall — boys rush in pell-mell; it is very orderly
now. There are no more skates or sleds, bats, balls
or strings left scattered about. Things are neat enough
now. There is no delay for sleepy folks; there is no
longer any task, before you lie down, of looking after
anybody, and tucking up the bedclothes. There are no
disputes to settle, nobody to get off to school, no com-
plaint, no opportunities for impossible things, no rips to
mend, no fingers to tie up, no faces to be washed, or
collars to be arranged. There never was such peace
in the house! It would sound like music to have some
feet to clatter down the front stairs! Oh for some chil-
dren^ noise! What used to ail us, that we were hush-
ing their loud laugh, checking their noisy frolic, and
reproving their slamming and banging the doors? We
wish our neighbors would only lend us an urchin or two
to make a little noise in these premises. A home with-
out children! It is like a lantern and no candle; a
garden and no flowers; a vine and no grapes; a brook
and no water gurgling and gushing in its channel. We
wrant to be tired, to be vexed, to be run over, to hear
children at work with all its varieties.

Bishop Earle says: "A child is man in a small letter,
yet the best copy of Adam, before he tasted of Eve or
the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the
world can only write his character. His soul is yet a
white paper unscribbled with observations of the world,
wherewith, at length, it becomes a blurred note-book.
He is purely happy, because he knows no evil, nor hath

YOUTH.

41

made means by sin to be acquainted with misery. He
arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures
evils to come, by foreseeing them. He kisses and loves
all, and, when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on
his beater. The older he grows, he is a stair lower
from God. He is the Christian's example, and the old
man's relapse; the one imitates his pureness, and the
other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off his
body with his little coat, he had got eternity without a
burden, and exchanged but one heaven for another."

Children are more easily led to be good by examples
of loving kindness, and tales of well-doing in others,
than threatened into obedience by records of sin, crime
and punishment. Then, on the infant mind impress
sincerity, truth, honesty, benevolence and their kindred
virtues, and the welfare of your child will be insured
not only during this life, but the life to come. Oh, what
a responsibility to form a creature, the frailest and feeb-
lest that heaven has made, into the intelligent and fear-
less sovereign of the whole animated creation, the
interpreter and adorer and almost the representative of
Divinity,

Men glory in raising great and magnificent struc-
tures and find a secret pleasure to see sets of their own
planting grow up and flourish; but it is a greater and
more glorious work to build up a man; to see a youth

42

YOUTH.

of our own planting, from the small beginnings and
advantages we have given him, to grow up into a con-
siderable fortune, to take root in the world, and to shoot
up into such a height, and spread his branches so wide,
that we who first planted him may ourselves rind com-
fort and shelter under his shadow.

Much of our early gladness vanishes utterly from our
memory; we can never recall the joy with which we
laid our heads on our mother's bosom, or rode our
father's back in childhood ; doubtless that joy is wrought
up into our nature as the sunlight of long past morn-
ings is wrought up in the soft mellowness of the apricot.

The time will soon come — if it has not already —
when you must part from those who have surrounded
the same paternal board, who mingled with you in the
gay-hearted joys of childhood, and the opening promise
of youth. New cares will attend you in new situations;
and the relations you form, or the business you pursue,
ma)7 call you far from the "play-place" of your "early
days." In the unseen future, your brothers and sisters
may be sundered from you; your lives may be spent
apart; and in death you may be divided; and of you it
may be said —

" They grew in beauty, side by side,
They filled one home with glee;
Their graves are severed far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea."

Let your own home be the cynosure of your affec-
tions, the spot where your highest desires are concen-
trated. Do this, and you will prove, not only the hope.

YOUTH.

43

but the stay of your kindred and home. Your per-
sonal character will elevate the whole family. Others
may become degenerate sons, and bring the gray hairs
of their parents with sorrow to the grave. But you
will be the pride and staff of a mother, and an honor to
your sire. You will establish their house, give peace
to their pillow, and be a memorial to their praise.

Spend your evening hours, boys, at home. You may
make them among the most agreeable and profitable
of your lives, and when vicious companions would
tempt you away, remember that God has said, uCast
not in thy lot with them; walk thou not in their way;
refrain thy foot from their path. They lay in wait for
their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.
But walk thou in the way of good men, and keep the
paths of the righteous."'

Keep good company or none. Never be idle. If your
hands cannot be usefully employed, attend to the culti-
vation of your mind. Always speak the truth. Make
few promises. Live up to your engagements. Keep
your own secrets, if you have any. When you speak
to a person, look him in the face. Good company and
good conversation are the very sinews of virtue. Good
character is above all things else. Your character
cannot be essentially injured except by your own acts.
If one speak evil of you, let your life be such that none
will believe him. Drink no kind of intoxicating liquors.
Always live, misfortune excepted, within your income.
When you retire to bed, think over what you have been
doing during the day. Make no haste to be rich if you
would prosper. Small and steady gains give compe-

44

YOUTH.

tency with tranquility of mind. Never play at any
kind of game of chance. Avoid temptation through
fear that you may not be able to withstand it. Never
run into debt, unless you see a way to get out again.
Never borrow if you can possibly avoid it. Never
speak evil of any one. Be just before you are gener-
ous. Keep yourself innocent if you would be happy.
Save when you are young to spend when you are old.
Never think that which you do for religion is time or
money misspent. Always go to meeting when you can.
Read some portion of the Bible every day. Often think
of death, and your accountability to God.

An honest, industrious boy is always wanted. He
will be sought for; his services will be in demand; he
will be respected and loved; he wrill he spoken of in
w^ords of high commendation; he will always have a
home; he will grow up to be a man of known worth
and established character.

He will be wanted. The merchant will want him for
a salesman or a clerk; the master mechanic will want
him for an apprentice or a journeyman; those with a job
to let will want him for a contractor; clients will want
him for a lawyer; patients for a physician; religious
-congregations for a pastor ; parents for a teacher of their
children; and the people for an officer.

He will be wanted. Townsmen will want him as a
■citizen; acquaintances as a neighbor; neighbors as a
friend; families as a visitor; the world as an acquaint-
ance; nay, girls will want him for a beau and finally
for a husband.

To both parents, when faithful, a child is indebted

YOUTH.

45

beyond estimation. If one begins to enumerate their
claims, to set in order their labors, and recount their
sacrifices and privations, he is soon compelled to desist
from his task. He is constrained to acknowledge that
their love for him is surpassed only by that of the great
Spring of all good, whom — to represent in the strongest
language our measureless indebtedness to Him — we
call "Our Father in Heaven."

Parents do wrong in keeping their children hanging
around home, sheltered and enervated by parental in-
dulgence. The eagle does better. It stirs up its nest
when the young eagles are able to fly. They are com-
pelled to shift for themselves, for the old eagle literally
turns them out, and at the same time tears all the down
and feathers from the nest. 'Tis this rude and rough
experience that makes the king of birds so fearless in
his flight and so expert in the pursuit of prey. It is a
misfortune to be born with a silver spoon in your
mouth, for you have it to carry and plague you all your
days. Riches often hang like a dead weight, yea like
a millstone about the necks of ambitious young men..
Had Benjamin Franklin or George Law been brought
up in the lap of affluence and ease, they would probably
never- have been heard of by the world at large. It was
the making of the one that he ran away, and of the
other that he was turned out of doors. Early thrown
upon their own resources, they acquired the energy
and skill to overcome resistance, and to grapple with
the difficulties that beset their pathway. And here I
think they learned the most important lesson of their
lives — a lesson that developed their manhood — forcing

46

YOUTH.

upon them Necessity, the most useful and inexorable
of masters. There is nothing like being bound out,
turned out, or even kicked out, to compel a man to do
for himself. Rough handling of the last sort has often
made drunken men sober. Poor boys, though at the
foot of the hill, should remember that every step they
take toward the goal of wealth and honor gives them
increased energy and power. They have a -purchase,
and obtain a momentum, the rich man's son never
knows. The poor man's son has the furthest to go, but
without knowing it he is turning the longest lever, and
that with the utmost vim and vigor. Boys, do not sigh
for the capital or indulgence of the rich, but use the
capital you have — I mean those God-given powers
which every healthy youth of good habits has in and
of himself. All a man wants in this life is a skillful
hand, a well informed mind, and a good heart. In our
happy land, and in these favored times of libraries,
Lyceums, liberty, religion and education, the humblest
and poorest can aim at the greatest usefulness, and the
highest excellence, with a prospect of success that calls
forth all the endurance, perseverance and industry that
is in man.

We live in an age marked by its lack of veneration.
Old institutions, however sacred, are now fearlessly, and
often wantonly, assailed; the aged are not treated with
deference; and fathers and mothers are addressed with
rudeness. The command now runs, one would think,
not in the good old tenor of the Bible, " Children obe}^
your parents in the Lord, for this is right," but thus:
Parents obey your children. Some may go so far as to

YOUTH.

47

say this is right. "Why should I, who am so much
superior to my father and my mother, bow down before
them? Were they equal to me; did they appear so
well in society; and, especially, were they not in desti-
tute circumstances I could respect them. But" — my
3'oung friend, pause — God, nature, and humanity forbid
you to pursue this strain. Because our parents are poor,
are we absolved from all obligations to love and respect
them? Nay, if our father was in narrow circumstances,
and still did all that he could for us, we owe him,
instead of less regard, an hundred fold the more. If our
mother, with scanty means, could promote our comfort
and train us up as she did, then, for the sake of reason,
of right, of common compassion, let us not despise her
in her need.

Let every child, having any pretence to heart, or
manliness, or piety, and who is so fortunate as to have
a father or mother living, consider it a sacred duty to
consult at any reasonable, personal sacrifice, the known
wishes of such a parent, until that parent is no more;
and our word for it the recollection of the same through
the after pilgrimage of life will sweeten every sorrow,
will brighten every gladness, will sparkle every tear
drop with a joy ineffable. But be selfish still, have your
own way, consult your own inclinations, yield to the
bent of your own desires, regardless of a parent's com-
mands, and counsels, and beseechings, and tears, and as
the Lord liveth your life will be a failure; because, "the
eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey
his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and
the young eagle shall eat it."

48

HOME.

Consider, finally, that if you live on, the polluted joys
of youth cannot be the joys of old age; though its guilt
and the sting left behind, will endure. I know well that
the path of strict virtue is steep and rugged. But, for
the stern discipline of temperance, the hardship of self-
denial, the crushing of appetite and passion, there will
be the blessed recompense of a cheerful, healthful man-
hood, and an honorable old age. Yes, higher and better
than all temporal returns, live for purity of speech and
thought; live for an incorruptible character; have the
courage to begin the great race, and the energy to
pursue the glorious prize; foresee your danger, arm
against it, trust in God, and you will have nothing to
fear.

What a hallowed name! How full of enchantment
and how dear to the heart! Home is the magic circle
within which the weary spirit finds refuge; it is the
sacred asylum to which the care-worn heart retreats to
find rest from the toils and inquietudes of life.

Ask the lone wanderer as he plods his tedious way,
bent with the weight of age, and white with the frost
of years, ask him what is home? He will tell you " it
is a green spot in memory; an oasis in the desert; a
center about which the fondest recollections of his
grief-oppressed heart cling with all the tenacity of
youths first love. It was once a glorious, a happy

UOME.

49

reality, but now it rests only as an image of the mind."

Home! That name touches every fiber of the soul,
and strikes every chord of the human heart with its
angelic fingers. Nothing but death can break its spell.
What tender associations are linked with home! What
pleasing images and deep emotions it awakens! It calls
up the fondest memories of life and opens in our nature
the purest, deepest, richest gush of consecrated thought
and feeling.

Some years ago some twenty thousand people gath-
ered in the old Castle Garden, New York, to hear
Jennie Lind sing, as no other songstress ever had sung,
the sublime compositions of Beethoven, Handel, etc.
At length the Swedish Nightingale thought of her
home, paused, and seemed to fold her wings for a
higher flight. She began with deep emotion to pour
forth "Home, Sweet Home." The audience could not
stand it. An uproar of applause stopped the music.
Tears gushed from those thousands like rain. Bee-
thoven and Handel were forgotten. After a moment
the song came again, seemingly as from heaven, almost
angelic. Home, that was the word that bound as with
a spell twenty thousand souls, and Howard Payne tri-
umphed over the great masters of song. When we
look at the brevity and simplicity of this home song,
we are ready to ask, what is the charm that lies con-
cealed in it? Why does the dramatist and poet find
his reputation resting on so apparently narrow a basis?
The answer is easy. Next to religion, the deepest and
most ineradicable sentiment in the human soul is that of
the home affections. Every heart vibrates to this theme.

50

HOME.

Home has an influence which is stronger than death.
It is law to our hearts, and binds us with a spell which
neither time nor change can break; the darkest vil-
lainies which have disgraced humanity cannot neutralize
it. Gray-haired and demon guilt will make his dismal
cell the sacred urn of tears wept over the memories of
home, and these will soften and melt into tears of peni-
tence even the heart of adamant.

Ask the little child what is home ? You will find
that to him it is the world — he knows no other. The
father's love, the mother's smile, the sister's embrace,
the brother's welcome, throw about his home a heavenly
halo, and make it as attractive to him as the home of
the angels. Home is the spot where the child pours
out all its complaints, and it is the grave of all its sor-
rows. Childhood has its sorrows and its grievances,
but home is the place where these are soothed and ban-
ished by the sweet lullaby of a fond mother's voice.

Was paradise an abode of purity and peace? or will
the New Eden above be one of unmingled beatitude?
Then " the Paradise of Childhood," " the Eden of
Home,", are names applied to the family abode. In
that paradise, all may appear as smiling and serene to
childhood as the untainted garden did to unfallen man;
even the remembrance of it, amid distant scenes of woe,
has soothed some of the saddest hours of life, and
crowds of mourners have spoken of

" A home, that paradise below
Of sunshine, and of flowers,
Where hallowed joys perennial flow
By calm sequester'd bowers/'

HOME.

51

There childhood nestles like a bird which has built
its abode among roses; there the cares and the cold-
ness of earth are, as long as possible, averted. Flowers
there bloom, or fruits invite on every side, and there
paradise would indeed be restored, could mortal power
ward off the consequences of sin. This new garden
of the Lord would then abound in beauty unsullied, and
trees of the Lord's planting, bearing fruit to his glory,
would be found in plenty there — it would be reality,
and not mere poetry,' to speak of

" My own dear quiet home,
The Eden of my heart."

Home of my childhood! What words fall upon the
ear with so much of music in their cadence as those
which recall the scenes of innocent and happy child-
hood, now numbered with the memories of the past!
How fond recollection delights to dwell upon the events
which marked our early pathway, when the unbroken
home-circle presented a scene of loveliness vainly sought
but in the bosom of a happy family! Intervening years
have not dimmed the vivid coloring with which mem-
ory has adorned those joyous hours of youthful inno-
cence. We are again borne on the wings of imagina-
tion to the place made sacred by the remembrance of
a father's care, a mother's love, and the cherished asso-
ciations of brothers and sisters.

Home ! how often we hear persons speak of the home
of their childhood. Their minds seem to delight in
dwelling upon the recollections of joyous days spent
beneath the parental roof, when their young and happy

52

HOME.

hearts were as light and free as the birds who made the
woods resound with the melody of their cheerful voices.
What a blessing it is, when weary with care and bur-
dened with sorrow, to have a home to which we can go
and there, in the midst of friends we love, forget our
troubles and dwell in peace and quietness.

There is no happiness in life, there is no misery like
that growing out of the dispositions which consecrate
or desecrate a home. Peace at home, that is the boon.
"He is happiest, be lie king or peasant, who finds peace
in his home." Home should be made so truly home
that the weary tempted heart could turn toward it any-
where on the dusty highway of life and receive light
and strength. Should be the sacred refuge of our lives,
whether rich or poor. The affections and loves of home
are graceful things, especially among the poor. The
ties that bind the wealthy and the proud to home may
be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man
to his humble hearth are of the true metal and bear the
stamp of heaven. These affections and loves constitute
the poetry of human life, and, so far as our present
existence is concerned with all the domestic relations,
are worth more than all other social ties. They give the
first throb to the heart and unseal the deep fountains of
its love. Home is the chief school of human virtue.
Its responsibilities, joys, sorrows, smiles, tears, hopes,
and solicitudes form the chief interest of human life.

There is nothing in the world which is so venerable
as the character of parents; nothing so intimate and
endearing as the relation of husband and wife; nothing
so tender as that of children; nothing so lovely as those

HOME.

53

of brothers and sisters. The little circle is made one
by a singular union of the affections. The only foun-
tain in the wilderness of life, where man drinks of water
totally unmixed with bitter ingredients, is that which
gushes for him in the calm and shady recess of domes-
tic life. Pleasure may heat the heart with artificial
excitement, ambition may delude it with golden dreams,
war may eradicate its fine fibres and diminish its sensi-
tiveness, but it is only domestic love that can render it
truly happy.

Even as the sunbeam is composed of millions of
minute rays, the home life must be constituted of little
tendernesses, kind looks, sweet laughter, gentle words,
loving counsels; it must not be like the torch-blaze. of
natural excitement which is easily quenched, but like
the serene, chastened light which burns as safely in the
dry east wind as in the stillest atmosphere. Let each
bear the other's burden the while — let each cultivate
the mutual confidence which is a gift capable of increase
and improvement — and soon it will be found that kind-
liness will spring up on every side, displacing constitu-
tional unsuitability, want of mutual knowledge, even as
we have seen sweet violets and primroses dispelling the
gloom of the gray sea-rocks.

There is nothing on earth so beautiful as the house-
hold on which Christian love forever smiles, and where
religion walks a counselor and a friend. No cloud can
darken it, for its twin-stars are centered in the soul.
No storms can make it tremble, for it has a heavenly
support and a heavenly anchoiy

Home is a place of refuge. Tossed day by day

I

54

HOME.

upon the rough and stormy ocean of life — harassed
by worldly cares, and perplexed by worldly inqui-
etudes, the weary spirit yearns after repose. It seeks
and finds it in the refuge which home supplies. Here
the mind is at rest; the heart's turmoil becomes quiet ,
and the spirit basks in the peaceful delights of domes-
tic love.

Yes, home is a -place of rest — we feel it so when we
seek and enter it after the busy cares and trials of the
day are over. We may find joy elsewhere, but it is
not the joy — the satisfaction of home. Of the former
the heart may soon tire; of the latter, never. In the
former there is much of cold formality; much heart-
lessness under the garb of friendship, but in the latter
it is all heart — all friendship of the purest, truest char-
acter.

The road along which the man of business travels in
pursuit of competence or wealth is not a Macadamized
one, nor does it ordinarily lead through pleasant scenes
and by well-springs of delight. On the contrary, it is
a rough and rugged path, beset with " wait-a-bit " thorns
and full of pit-falls, which can only be avoided by the
watchful care of circumspection. After every day's
journey over this worse than rough turnpike road, the
wayfarer needs something more than rest; he requires
solace, and he deserves it. He is weaVy of the dull
prose of life, and athirst for the poetry. Happy is the
business man who can find that solace and that poetry
at home. Warm greetings from loving hearts, fond
glances from bright eyes, the welcome shouts of chil-
dren, the many thousand little arrangements for our

i

BOMB.

55

comfort and enjoyment that silently tell of thoughtful
and expectant love, the gentle ministrations that disen-
cumber us into an old and easy seat before we are
aware of it ; these and like tokens of affection and sym-
pathy constitute the poetry which reconciles us to the
prose of life. Think of this, ye wives and daughters
of business men! Think of the toils, the anxieties, the
mortification, and wear that fathers undergo to secure
for you comfortable homes, and compensate them for
their trials by making them happ}^ by their own fire-
sides.

Is it not true, that much of a man's energy and suc-
cess, as well as happiness, depends upon the character
of his home? Secure there, he goes forth bravely to
encounter the trials of life. It encourages him, to think
of his pleasant home. It is his point of rest. The
thought of a dear wife shortens the distance of a jour-
ney, and alleviates the harassings of business. It is a
reserved power to fall back upon. Home and home
friends! How dear they are to us all! Well might
we love to linger on the picture of home friends!
When all other friends prove false, home friends,
removed from every bias but love, are the steadfast
and sure stays of our peace of soul, — are best and
dearest when the hour is darkest and the danger of
evil the greatest. But if one have none to care for
him at home, — if there be neglect, or love of absence,
or coldness, in our home and on our hearth, then, even
if we prosper without, it is dark indeed within! It is
not seldom that we can trace alienation and dissipation
to this source. If no wife or sister care for him who

56

HOME.

returns from his toil, well may he despair of life's best
blessings. Home is nothing but a name without home
friends.

The sweetest type of heaven is home — nay, heaven
itself is the home for whose acquisition we are to strive
the most strongly. Home, in one form and another, is
the great object of life. It stands at the end of every
day's labor, and beckons us to its bosom; and life would
be cheerless and meaningless did we not discern across
the river that divides it from the life beyond, glimpses
of the pleasant mansions prepared for us.

Heaven! that land of quiet rest — toward which those,
who, worn down and tired with the toils of earth, direct
their frail barks over the troubled waters of life, and
after a long and dangerous passage, find it — safe in the
haven of eternal bliss. Heaven is the home that awaits
us beyond the grave. There the friendships formed on
earth, and which cruel death |ias severed, are never
more to be broken; and parted friends shall meet again,
never more to be separated.

It is an inspiring hope that, when we separate here
on earth at the summons of death's angel, and when a
few more years have rolled over the heads of those
remaining, if "faithful unto death," we shall meet again
in heaven, our eternal home, there to dwell in the pres-
ence of our heavenly Father, and go no more out for-
ever, i

At the best estate, my friends, we are only pilgrims
and strangers. Heaven is to be our eternal home.
Death will never knock at the door of that mansion,
and in all that land there will not be a single grave.

HOME.

57

Aged parents rejoice very much when on Christmas
Day or Thanksgiving Day they have their children at
home; but there is almost always a son or a daughter
absent — absent from the country, perhaps absent from
the world. But Oh, how our Heavenly Father will
rejoice in the long thanksgiving day of heaven, when
He has all His children with Him in glory ! How glad
brothers and sisters will be to meet after so long a sep-
aration! Perhaps a score of years ago they parted at
the door of the tomb. Now they meet again at the
door of immortality. Once they looked through a
glass darkly. Now, face to face, corruption, incorrup-
tion — mortality, immortality. Where are now all their
sorrows and temptations and trials? Overwhelmed in
the Red Sea of death, while they, dry-shod, marched
into glory. Gates of jasper, capstone of amethyst,
thrones of dominion do not so much affect my soul as
the thought of home. «<Once there, let earthly sorrows
howl like storms and roll like seas. Home! Let thrones
rot and empires wither. Home! Let the world die in
earthquake struggles and be buried amid procession of
planets and dirge of spheres. Home ! Let everlasting
ages roll in irresistible sweepj Home ! No sorrow, no
crying, no tears, no death; but home! sweet home!
Beautiful home! Glorious home! Everlasting home!
Home with each other! Home with angels! Home
with God ! Home, Home! v Through the rich grace
of Christ Jesus, may we all reach it..

V

58

FAMILY WORSHIP.

A prayerless family cannot be otherwise than irre-
ligious. They who daily pray in their homes, do well;
they that not only pray, but read the Bible, do better;
but they do best of all, who not only pray and read the
Bible, but sing the praises of God.

What scene can be more lovely on earth, more like ,
the heavenly home, and more pleasing to God, than
that of a pious family kneeling with one accord around
the home-altar, and uniting their supplications to their
Father in heaven! How sublime the act of those
parents who thus pray for the blessing of God upon
their household! How lovely the scene of a pious
mother gathering her little ones around her at the bed-
side, and teaching them the privilege of prayer! And
what a safeguard is this devotion, against all the machi-
nations of Satan!

It is this which makes home a type of heaven, the
dwelling place of God. The family altar is heaven's
threshold. And happy are those children who at that
altar, have been consecrated by a father's blessing, bap-
tized by a mother's tears, and borne up to heaven upon
their joint petitions, as a voluntary thank-offering to
God. The home that has honored God with an altar
of devotion may well be called blessed.

The influence of family worship is great, silent, irre-
sistible and permanent. Like the calm, deep stream, it
moves on in silent, but overwhelming power. It strikes
its roots deep into the human heart, and spreads its
branches wide over the whole being, like the lily that

FAMILY WORSHIP.

59

bears the tempest, and the Alpine flower that leans its
cheek upon the bosom of eternal snows — it is' exerted
amid the wildest storms of life, and breathes a softening
spell in our bosom, even when a heartless world is
paying up the foundations of sympathy and love.

It affords home security and happiness, removes
family friction, and causes all the complicated wheels
of the home - machinery to move on noiselessly and
smoothly. It promotes union and harmony, expunges
all selfishness, allays petulant feelings and turbulent
passions, destroys peevishness of temper, and makes
home intercourse holy and delightful. It causes the
members to reciprocate each other's affections, hushes
the voice of recrimination, and exerts a softening and
harmonizing influence over each heart. The dew of
Hermon falls upon the home where prayer is wont to
be made. Its members enjoy the good and the pleas-
antness of dwelling together in unity. It gives tone and
intensity to their affections and sympathies; it throws a
sunshine around their hopes and interests; it increases
their happiness, and takes away the poignancy of their
grief and sorrow. It availeth much, therefore, both for
time and eternity. Its voice has sent many a poor
prodigal home to his father's house. Its answer has
often been, "This man was born there!" The child,
kneeling beside the pious mother, and pouring forth its
infant prayer to God, must attract the notice of the
heavenly host, and receive into its soul the power of a
new life.

But in order to do this, the worship must be regular
and devout, and the whole family engage in it. Some

60

FAMILY WOMSHIP.

families are not careful to have their children present
when they worship. This is very wrong. The chil-
dren, above all others, are benefited, and should always
be present. Some do not teach the children to kneel
during prayer, and hence, they awkwardly sit in their
seats, while the parents kneel. This is a sad mistake.
If they do not kneel, they naturally suppose they have
no part or lot in the devotions, and soon feel that it is
wrong for them to bow before the Lord. We have
seen many cases where grown up sons and daughters
have never bent the knee before the Lord, and thought
it wrong to kneel till they were Christians. In this way
they were made more shy and stubborn, and felt that
there was an impassable barrier between them and
Christ. This feeling is wrong, and unnecessary. If
family worship had been rightly observed, they would
have felt that they were very near the Savior, and
would easily be inclined to give their hearts to him.
Indeed, children thus trained, seldom grow to maturity
without becoming practical Christians.

Indeed, in itself, it embodies a hallowing influence
that pleads for its observance. It must needs be, that
trials will enter a household. The conflict of wishes,
the clashing of views, and a thousand other causes, will
ruffle the temper, and produce jar and friction in the
machinery of the family. There is needed then, some
daily agency that shall softly enfold the homestead with
its hallowed and soothing power, and restore the fine,
harmonious play of its various parts. The father needs
that which shall gently lift away from his thoughts the
disquieting burden of his daily business. The -mother

FAMIL Y WORSHIP.

61

that which shall smooth down the fretting irritation of
her unceasing toil and trial; and the child and domestic
that which shall neutralize the countless agencies of evil
that ever beset them. And what so well adapted to do
this, as for all to gather, when the day is done, around
the holy page, and pour a united supplication and
acknowledgment to that sleepless Power, whose protec-
tion and scrutiny are ever around their path, and who
will bring all things at last into judgment? And when
darker and sadder days begin to shadow the home,
what can cheer and brighten the sinking heart so finely
as this standing resort to that fatherly One who can
make the tears of the loneliest sorrow to be the seed-
pearls of the brightest crown ? See what home becomes
with religion as its life and rule. Human nature is there
checked and moulded by the amiable spirit and lovely
character of Jesus. The mind is expanded, the heart
softened, sentiments refined, passions subdued, hopes
elevated, pursuits ennobled, the world cast into the
shade, and heaven realized as the first prize. The
great want of our intellectual and moral nature is here
met, and home education becomes impregnated with
the spirit and elements of our preparation for eternity.

Compare an irreligious home with this, and see the
vast importance of family worship. It is a moral waste;
its members move in the putrid atmosphere of vitiated
feeling and misdirected power. Brutal passions become
dominant; we hear the stern voice of parental despo-
tism; we behold a scene of filial strife and insubordina-
tion; there is throughout a heart-blank. Domestic life
becomes clouded by a thousand crosses and disappoint-

62

FAMILY WORSHIP.

ments: the solemn realities of the eternal world are
cast into the shade; the home-conscience and feeling
become stultified; the sense of moral duty distorted,
and all the true interests of home appear in a haze.
Natural affection is debased, and love is prostituted to
the base designs of self, and the entire family, with all
its tender chords, ardent hopes, and promised interests,
becomes engulfed in the vortex of criminal worldliness !

It is included in the necessities of our children, and
in the covenant promises of God. The penalties of its
neglect, and the rewards of our faithfulness to it, should
prompt us to ' its establishment in our homes. Its
absence is a curse; its presence a blessing. It is a
foretaste of heaven. Like manna, it will feed our
souls, quench our thirst, sweeten the cup of life, and
shed a halo of glory and of gladness around our fire-
sides. Let yours, therefore, be the religious home;
and then be sure that God will delight to dwell therein,
and His blessing will descend, like the dews of heaven,
upon it. Your children shall "not be found begging
bread," but shall be like "olive plants around your
table," — the "heritage of the Lord." Yours will be
the home of love and harmony; it shall have the
charter of family rights and privileges, the ward of
family interests, the palladium of family hopes and
happiness. Your household piety will be the crowning
attribute of your peaceful home, — the "crown of living
stars " that shall adorn the night of its tribulation, and
the pillar of cloud and of fire in its pilgrimage to a
"better country." It shall strew the family threshold
with the flowers of promise, and enshrine the memory

HOME INFLUENCE.

63

of loved ones gone before, in all the fragrance, of that
" blessed hope" of reunion in heaven which looms up
from a dying hour. It shall give to the infant soul its
"perfect flowering," and expand it in all the fullness of
a generous love and conscious blessedness, making it
"lustrous in the livery of divine knowledge." And
then in the dark hour of home separation and bereave-
ment, when the question is put to you mourning
parents, "Is it well with the child? is it well with
thee?" you can answer with joy, "It is well!"

Our nature demands home. It is the first essential
element of our social being., This cannot be complete
without the home relations; there would be no proper-
equilibrium of life and character without the home
influence. The heart, when bereaved and disappointed,
naturally turns for refuge to home-life and sympathy.
No spot is so attractive to the weary one; it is the
heart's moral oasis. There is a mother's watchful love
and a father's sustaining influence; there is a husband's
protection and a wife's tender sympathy; there is the
circle of loving brothers and sisters — happy in each
other's love. Oh, what is life without these! A desola-
tion, a painful, gloomy pilgrimage through "desert
heaths and barren sands."

Home influence may be estimated from the immense
force of its impressions. It is the prerogative of home

64

HOME INFLUENCE.

to make the first impression upon our nature, and to
give that nature its first direction onward and upward.
It uncovers the moral fountain, chooses its channel, and
gives the stream its first impulse. It makes the " first
stamp and sets the first seal" upon the plastic nature of
the child. It gives the first tone to our desires and
furnishes ingredients that will either sweeten or embitter
the whole cup of life. These impressions are indelible
and durable as life. Compared with them, other im-
pressions are like those made upon sand or wax. These
are like "the deep borings into the flinty rock." To
erase them we must remove every strata of our being.
Even the infidel lives under the holy influence of a pious
mother's impressions. John Randolph could never shake
off the restraining influence of a little prayer his mother
taught him when a child. It preserved him from the
clutches of avowed infidelity.

The home influence is either a blessing or a curse,
either for good or for evil. It cannot be neutral. In
either case it is mighty, commencing with our birth,
going with us through life, clinging to us in death, and
reaching into the eternal world. It is that unitive
power which arises out of the manifold relations and
associations of domestic life. The specific influences of
husband and wife, of parent and child, of brother and
sister, of teacher and pupil, united and harmoniously
blended, constitute the home influence.

From this we may infer the character of home influ-
ence. It is great, silent, irresistible and permanent.
Like the calm, deep stream, it moves on in silent, but
overwhelming power. It strikes its roots deep into the

HOME INFLUENCE.

65

human heart, and spreads its branehes wide ©ver our
whole being. Like the lily that braves the tempest,
and "the Alpine flower that leans its cheek on the
bosom of eternal snows," it is exerted amid the wildest
storms of life and breathes a softening spell in our
bosom even when a heartless world is freezing up
the fountains of sympathy and love. It is governing,
restraining, attracting and traditional. It holds the
empire of the heart and rules the life. It restrains the
wayward passions of the child and checks him in his
mad career of ruin.

Our habits, too, are formed under the moulding
power of home. The "tender twig" is there bent, the
spirit shaped, principles implanted, and the whole char-
acter is formed until it becomes a habit. Goodness or
evil are there " resolved into necessity." Who does
not feel this influence of home upon all his habits of
life? The gray-haired father who wails in his second
infancy, feels the traces of his childhood home in his
spirit, desires and habits. Ask the strong man in the
prime of life whether the most firm and reliable prin-
ciples of his character were not the inheritance of the
parental home.

The most illustrious statesmen, the most distinguished
warriors, the most eloquent ministers, and the greatest
benefactors of human kind, owe their greatness to the
fostering influence of home. Napoleon knew and felt
this when he said, "What France wants is good moth-
ers, and you may be sure then that France will have
good sons." The homes of the American revolution
made the men of the revolution. Their influence reaches
5

t>6

ROME INFLUENCE.

yet far into the inmost frame and constitution of our
glorious republic, it controls the fountains of her power,
forms the character of her citizens and statesmen, and
shapes our destiny as a people. Did not the Spartan
mother and her home give character to the Spartan
nation? Her lessons to her child infused the iron nerve
into the heart of that nation, and caused her sons, in
the wild tumult of battle, "either to live behind their
shields, or to die upon them!" Her influence fired them
with a patriotism which was stronger than death. Had
it been hallowed by the pure spirit and principles of
Christianity what a power of good it would have been!

But alas! the home of an Aspasia had not the heart
and ornaments of the Christian family. Though "the
monuments of Cornelia's virtues were the character of
her children," yet these were not "the ornaments of a
quiet spirit." Had the central heart of the Spartan
home been that of the Christian mother, the Spartan
nation would now perhaps adorn the brightest page of
history.

Home, in all well constituted minds, is always associ-
ated with moral and social excellence. The higher
men rise in the scale of being, the more important and
interesting is home. The Arab or forest man may care
little for his home, but the Christian man of cultured
heart and developed mind will love his home, and gen-
erally love it in proportion to his moral worth. He
knows it is the planting-ground of every seed of moral-
ity— the garden of virtue, and the nursery of religion.
He knows that souls immortal are here trained for the
•skies; that private worth and public character are. made

HOME INFLUENCE?.

GT

iii its sacred retreat. To love home with a deep and
.abiding interest, with a view to its elevating influence,
is to love truth and right, heaven and God.

Our life abroad is but a reflex of what it is at home.
We make ourselves in a great measure at home. This
is especially true of woman. The woman who is rude,
coarse and vulgar at home, cannot be expected to be
amiable, chaste and refined in the world. Her home
habits will stick to her. She cannot shake them off.
They are woven into the web of her life. Her home
language will be first on her tongue. Her home by-
words will come out to mortify her just when she wants
most to hide them in her heart. Her home vulgarities
will show their hideous forms to shock her most when
she wants to appear her best. Her home coarseness
will appear most when she is in the most refined circles,
and appearing there will abash her more than else-
where. All her home habits will follow her. They
have become a sort of second nature to her. It is
much the same with men. It is indeed there that every
man must be known by those who would make a just
estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and
embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often
dressed for show in painted honor and fictitious benevo-
lence. Every young woman should feel that just what
she is at home she will appear abroad. If she attempts
to appear otherwise, everybody will soon see through
the attempt. We cannot cheat the world long about
our real characters. The thickest and most opaque
mask we can put on will soon become transparent.
This fact we should believe without a doubt. Decep-

68

HOME INFLUENCE.

tion most often deceives itself. The deceiver is the
most deceived. The liar is often the only one cheated.
The young woman who pretends to what she is not,
believes her pretense is not understood. Other people
laugh in their sleeves at her foolish pretensions. Every
young woman should early form in her mind an ideal
of a true home. It should not be the ideal of a pi ace y
but of the character of home. Place does not consti-
tute home. Many a gilded palace and sea of luxury is
not a home. Many a flower-girt dwelling and splendid
mansion lacks all the essentials of home. A hovel is
often more a home than a palace. If the spirit of the
congenial friendship link not the hearts of the inmates
of a dwelling it is not a home. If love reign not there;
if charity spread not her downy mantle over all; if
peace prevail not; if contentment be not a meek and
merry dweller therein; if virtue rear not her beautiful
children, and religion come not in her white robe of
gentleness to lay her hand in benediction on every head,
the home is not complete. We are all in the habit of
building for ourselves ideal homes. But they are gen-
erally made up of outward things — a house, a garden,
a carriage, and the ornaments and appendages of lux-
ury. And if, in our lives, we do not realize our ideas,
we make ourselves miserable and our friends miserable.
Half the women in our country are unhappy because
their homes are not so luxurious as they wish.

The grand idea of home is a quiet, secluded spot,
where loving hearts dwell, set apart and dedicated to
improvement — to intellectual and moral improvement.
It is not a formal school of staid solemnity and rigid

HOME AMUSEMENTS.

69

discipline, where virtue is made a task and progress a
sharp necessity, but a free and easy exercise of all our
spiritual limbs, in which obedience is a pleasure, disci-
pline a joy, improvement a self-wrought delight. All
the duties and labors of home, when rightly understood,
are so many means of improvement. Even the trials
-of home are so many rounds in the ladder of spiritual
progress, if we but make them so. It is not merely by
speaking to children about spiritual things that you win
them over. If that be all you do, it will accomplish
nothing, less than nothing. It is the sentiments which
they hear at home, it is the maxims which rule your
daily conduct — the likings and dislikings which you
express — the whole regulations of the household, in
dress, and food, and furniture — the recreations you
indulge — the company you keep— the style of your
reading — the whole complexion of daily life — this cre-
ates the element in which your children are either
growing in grace, and preparing for an eternity of
glory — or they are learning to live without God, and
to die without hope.

" I have been told by men, who had passed unharmed
through the temptations of youth, that they owed their
escape from many dangers to the intimate companion-
ship of affectionate and pure-minded sisters. They

HOME AMUSEMENTS.

have been saved from a hazardous meeting with idle
company by some home engagement, of which their
sisters were the charm; they have refrained from mix-
ing with the impure, because they would not bring
home thoughts and feelings which they could not share
with those trusting and loving friends; they have put
aside the wine-cup, and abstained from stronger pota-
tions, because they would not profane with their fumes,
the holy kiss, with which they were accustomed to bid
their sisters good-night."

A proper amount of labor, well-spiced with sunny
sports, is almost absolutely necessary to the formation
of a firm, hardy, physical constitution, and a cheerful,
and happy mind. Let all youth not only learn to
choose and enjoy proper amusements, but let them
learn to invent them at home, and use them there, and
thus form ideas of such homes as they shall wish to
have their own children enjoy. Not half the people
know how to make a home. It Is one of the greatest
and most useful studies of life to learn how to make a
home — such a home as men, and women, and children
should dwell in. It is a study that should be early
introduced to the attention of youth. It would be well
if books were written upon this most interesting sub-
ject, giving many practical rules and hints, with a long
chapter on Amusements.

That was a good remark of Seneca, when he said,
" Great is he who enjoys his ear then- ware as if it were
plate, and not less great is the man to whom all his
plate is no more than earthen-ware." Every home
should be cheerful. Innocent joy should reign in every

HUME AMUSEMENTS.

71

heart. There should be domestic amusements, fireside
pleasures, quiet and simple it may be, but such as shall
make home happy, and not leave it that irksome place
which will oblige the youthful spirit to look elsewhere
for joy. There are a thousand unobtrusive ways in
which we may add to the cheerfulness of home. The
very modulations of the voice will often make a won-
derful difference. How many shades of feeling are
expressed by the voice ! what a change comes over us
at the change of its tones! No delicately tuned harp-
string can awaken more pleasure; no grating discord
can pierce with more pain.

Let parents talk much and talk well at home. A
father who is habitually silent in his own house, may
be in many respects a wise man; but he is not wise in
his silence. We sometimes see parents, who are the
life of every company which they enter, dull, silent and
uninteresting at home among the children. If they
have not mental activity and mental stories sufficient
for both, let them first provide for their own household.
Ireland exports beef and wheat, and lives on pota-
toes; and they fare as poorly who reserve their social
charms for companions abroad, and keep their dullness
for home consumption. It is better to instruct children
and make them happy at home, than it is to charm
strangers or amuse friends. A silent house is a dull
place for young people, a place from which they will
escape if they can. They will talk of being "shut up'**
there; and the youth who does not love home is in
danger.

The true mother loves to see her son come home to

72

HOME AMUSEMENTS.

her. He may be almost as big as her house; a whis*
keranclo, with as much hair on his face as would stuff
her arm chair, and she may be a mere shred of a
woman; but he's uher boy;" and if he grew twice
as big he'd be "her boy" still; aye, and if he take unto
himself a wife, he's her boy still, for all that. She does
not believe a word of the old rhyme —

" Your son is your son till he gets him a wife ;
But your daughter's your daughter all the days of her life."

And what will bring our boys back to our home-
steads, but our making those homesteads pleasant to
them in their youth. Let us train a few roses on the
humble wall, and their scent and beauty will be long
remembered; and many a lad, instead of going to a
spree, will turn to his old bed, and return to his work
again, strengthened, invigorated, and refreshed, instead
of battered, weakened, and, perhaps, disgraced.

Fathers, mothers, remember this: and if you would
not have your children lost to you in after-life — if you
would have your married daughters not forget their
old home in the new one — if you would have your
sons lend a hand to keep you in the old rose-covered
cottage, instead of letting you go to the naked walls
of a workhouse — make home happy to them when
they are young. Send them out into the world in the
full belief that there is "no place like home," aye, "be
it ever so homely." And even if the old home should,
in the course of time, be pulled down, or be lost to
your children, it will still live in their memories. The
kind looks, and kind words, and thoughtful love of

HOME AMUSEMENTS.

73

those who once inhabited it, will not pass away. Your
home will be like the poet's vase —

" You may break, you may ruin, the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will cling to it still."

Music is an accomplishment usually valuable as a
home enjoyment, as rallying round the piano the
various members of a family, and harmonizing their
hearts, as well as their voices, particularly in devo-
tional strains. We know no more agreeable and inter-
esting spectacle than that of brothers and sisters playing
and singing together those elevated compositions in
music and poetry which gratify the taste and purify the
heart, while their parents sit delighted by. We have seen
and heard an elder sister thus leading the family choir,
who was the soul of harmony to the whole household,
and whose life was a perfect example. Parents should
not fail to consider the great value of home music.
Buy a good instrument and teach your family to sing
and play, then they can produce sufficient amusement
at home themselves so the sons will not think of look-
ing elsewhere for it, and thus often be led into dens of
vice and immorality. The reason that so many become
dissipated and run to every place of amusement, no
matter what its character, making every effort possible
to get away from home at night, is the lack of enter-
tainment at home.

74

TO YOUNG MEN.

Young men! you are wanted. From the street
corners, from the saloons and playhouses, from the
loafers ' rendezvous, from the idlers ' promenade, turn
your steps into the highway of noble aim and earnest
work. There are prizes enough for every successful
worker, crowns enough for ever}7 honorable head that
goes through the smoke of conflict to victory.

There is within the young man an upspringing of
lofty sentiment which contributes to his elevation, and
though there are obstacles to be surmounted and diffi-
culties to be vanquished, yet with truth for his watch-
word, and leaning on his own noble purposes and
indefatigable exertions, he may crown his brow with
imperishable honors. He may never wear the warrior's
crimson wreath, the poet's chaplet of bays, or the
statesman's laurels; .though no grand universal truth
may at his bidding stand confessed to the world, —
though it may never be his to bring to a successful
issue a great political revolution — to be the founder of
a republic whose name shall be a "distinguished star in
the constellation of nations," — yea, more, though his
name may never be heard beyond the narrow limits of
his own neighborhood, yet is his mission none the less a
high and holy one.

In the moral and physical world, not only the field
of battle, but also the consecrated cause of truth and
virtue calls for champions, and the field for doing good
is "white unto the harvest;" and if he enlists in the
ranks, and his spirit faints not, he may write his name

TO YOUNG MEN.

75

among the stars of heaven. Beautiful lives have blos-
somed in the darkest places, as pure white lilies full of
fragrance on the slimy, stagnant waters. No possession
is so productive of real influence as a highly cultivated
intellect. Wealth, birth, and official station may and
do secure to their possessors an external, superficial
courtesy; but they never did, and they never can, com-
mand the reverence of the heart. It is only to the man
of large and noble soul, to him who blends a cultivated
mind with an upright heart, that men yield the tribute
of deep and genuine respect.

But why do so few young men of early promise,
whose hopes, purposes, and resolves were as radiant as
the colors of the rainbow, fail to distinguish them-
selves? The answer is obvious; they are not willing
to devote themselves to that toilsome culture which is
the price of great success. Whatever aptitude for
particular pursuits nature may donate to her favorite
children, she conducts none but the laborious and the
studious to distinction.

God put the oak in the forest, and the pine on its
sand and rocks, and says to men, " There are your
houses; go hew, saw, frame, build, make. God makes
the trees; men must build the house. God supplies the
timber; men must construct the ship. God buries iron
in the heart of the earth; men must dig it, and smelt it,
and fashion it. What is useful for the body, and, still
more, what is useful for the mind, is to be had only by
exertion — exertion that will work men more than iron
is wrought — that will shape men more than timber is
shaped.

76

TO YOUNG MEN.

Great men have ever been men of thought as well as
men of action. As the magnificent river, rolling in the
pride of its mighty waters, owes its greatness to the
hidden springs of the mountain nook, so does the wide-
sweeping influence of distinguished men date its origin
from hours of privacy, resolutely employed in efforts
after self-development. The invisible spring of self-
culture is the source of every great achievement.

Away, then, young man, with all dreams of superi-
ority, unless you are determined to dig after knowledge,
as men search for concealed gold! Remember, that
every man has in himself the seminal principle of great
excellence, and he may develop it by cultivation if he
will try. Perhaps you are what the world calls -poor.
What of that? Most of the men whose names are as
household words were also the children of poverty.
Captain Cook, the circumnavigator of the globe was
born in a mud hut, and started in life as a cabin boy.
Lord Eldon, who sat on the woolsack in the British
parliament for nearly half a century, was the son of a
coal merchant. Franklin, the philosopher, diplomatist,
and statesman, was but a poor printer's boy, whose
highest luxury at one time, was only a penny roll, eaten
in the streets of Philadelphia. Ferguson, the profound
philosopher, was the son of a half-starved weaver.
Johnson, Goldsmith, Coleridge, and multitudes of others
of high distinction, knew the pressure of limited circum-
stances, and have demonstrated that poverty even is no
insuperable obstacle to success.

Up, then, young man, and gird yourself for the work
of self-cultivation! Set a high price on your leisure

TO YOUNG MEN.

77

moments. They are sands of precious gold. Properly
expended, they will procure for }Tou a stock of great
thoughts — thoughts that will fill, stir and invigorate,
and expand the soul. Seize also on the unparalleled
aids furnished by steam and type in this unequaled age.

The great thoughts of great men are now to be pro-
cured at prices almost nominal. You can, therefore,
easily collect a library of choice standard works. But
above all, learn to reflect even more than you read.
Without thought, books are the sepulchre of the soul, —
they only immure it. Let thought and reading go
hand in hand, and the intellect will rapidly increase in
strength and gifts. Its possessor will rise in character,
in power, and in positive influence. A great deal of
talent is lost in the world for the want of a little
courage. Every day sends to the grave a number of
obscure men, who have only remained in obscurity
because their timidity has prevented them from making
a first effort; and who, if they could have been induced
to begin, would, in all probability, have gone great
lengths in the career of fame. The fact is, that to do
anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand
back, shivering, and thinking of the cold and the
danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as
we can. It will not do to be perpetually calculating
tasks, and adjusting nice chances; it did very well
before the flood, where a man could consult his friends
upon an intended publication for a hundred and fifty
years, and then live to see its success afterward; but at
present a man waits and doubts, and hesitates, and con-
sults his brother, and his uncle, and particular friends,

78

TO YOUNG MEN.

till, one fine day, he finds that he is sixty years of age;
that he has lost so much time in consulting his first
cousin and particular friends, that he has no more time
to follow their advice.""

Man is born to dominion, but he must enter it by
conquest, and continue to do battle for every inch of
ground added to his sway. His first exertions are put
forth for the acquisition of the control and the establish-
ment of the authority of his own will. With his first
efforts to reduce his own physical powers to subjection,
he must simultaneously begin to subject his mental fac-
ulties to control. Through the combined exertion of
his mental and physical powers, he labors to spread his
dominion over the widest possible extent of the world
without.

Thus self-control and control over outward circum-
stances are alike the duty and the birthright of man.
But s^lf-control is the highest and noblest form of
dominion. "He that ruleth his own spirit is greater
than he that taketh a city.'"

If you intend to marry, if }^ou think your happiness
will be increased and your interests advanced by matri-
mony, be sure and "look where you Ye going." Join
yourself in union with no woman who is selfish, for she
will sacrifice you; with no one who is fickle, for she
will become estranged ; have naught to do with a proud
one, for she will ruin you. Leave a coquette to the fools
who flutter around her; let her own fireside accom-
modate a scold; and flee from a woman who loves
scandal, as you would flee from the evil one. "Look
where you're going" will sum it all up.

TO YOUNG MEN.

79

Gaze not on beanty too much, lest it blast thee; nor
too long, lest it blind thee; nor too near, lest it burn
thee: if thou like it, it deceives thee; if thou love it, it
disturbs thee; if thou lust after it, it destroys thee; if
virtue accompany it, it is the hearth paradise; if vice
associate it, it is the soul's purgatory; it is the wise
man's bonfire, and the fool's furnace. The Godless
youth is infatuated by a fair face, and is lured to his
fate by a syren's smile. He takes no counsel of the
Lord and is left to follow his own shallow fancies or the
instigations of his passions. The time will surely come
in his life when he will not so much want a pet as a
heroine. In dark and trying days, when the waves of
misfortune are breaking over him, and one home com-
fort, and another, and another is swept away, the piano
— the grand instrument — gone to the creditors, the
family turned out on the sidewalk by the heartless land-
lord, then what is the wife good for if her lips that
accompanied the piano in song, cannot lift alone the
notes, " Jesus, lover of my soul," etc. The strongest
arm in this world is not the arm of a blacksmith, nor
the arm of a giant; it is the arm of a woman, when
God has put into it, through faith and submission to
His will, his own moral omnipotence. If there is one
beautiful spot on earth, it is the home of the young
family consecrated by piety, the abode of the Holy
Spirit, above which the hovering angels touch their
wings, forming a canopy of protection and sanctity.

There is no moral object so beautiful to me as a con-
scientious young man. I watch him as I do a star in
the heavens; clouds may be before him, but we know

80

TO YOUNG MEN.

that his light is behind them and will beam again; the
blaze of others1 popularity may outshine him, but we
know that, though unseen, he illuminates his own true
sphere. He resists temptation, not without a struggle,,
for that is not virtue, but he does resist and conquer;
he bears the sarcasm of the profligate, and it stings
him, for that is a trait of virtue, but heals the wound
with his own pure touch. He heeds not the watch-
word of fashion if it leads to sin ; the Atheist, who says
not only in his heart, but with his lips, "There is no
God!'1 controls him not; he sees the hand of a creating
God, and rejoices in it. Woman is sheltered by fond
arms and loving counsel ; old age is protected by its
experience, and manhood by its strength; but the
young man stands amid the temptations of the world
like a self-balanced tower. Happy he who seeks and
gains the prop and shelter of morality. Onward, then,,
conscientious youth — raise thy standard and nerve thy-
self for goodness. If God has given thee intellectual
power, awaken in that cause; never let it be said of
thee, he helped to swell the tide of sin by pouring his
influence into its channels. If thou art feeble in mental
strength, throw not that drop into a polluted current.
Awake, arise, young man! assume that beautiful garb
of virtue! It is difficult to be pure and holy. Put on
thy strength, then. Let truth be the lady of thy love —
defend her.

A young man came to an aged professor of a dis-
tinguished continental university, with a smiling faceT
and informed him that the long and fondly cherished
desire of his heart was at length fulfilled — his parents

TO YOUNG MEN

81

had given their eonsent to his studying the profession
of the law. For some time he continued explaining
how he would spare no labor nor expense in perfecting
his education. When he paused, the old man, who had
been listening to him with great patience and kindness,
gently said, "Well! and when you have finished your
studies, what do you mean to do then?" "Then I shall
take my degree," answered the young man. "And
then?" asked the venerable friend. "And then," con-
tinued the youth, "I shall have a number of difficult
cases, and shall attract notice, and win a great reputa-
tion." "And then?" repeated the holy man. "Why,
then," replied the youth, "I shall doubtless be promoted
to some high office in the State." "And then?" "And
then," pursued the young lawyer, "I shall live in honor
and wealth, and look forward to a happy old age."
"And then?" repeated the old man. "And then," said
the youth, "and then — and then — and then I shall
die." Here the venerable listener lifted up his voice,
and again asked, with solemnity and emphasis, "And
then?" Whereupon the aspiring student made no
answer, but cast down his head, and in silerice and
thoughtfulness retired. The last "And then?" had
pierced his heart like a sword, had made an impression
which he could not dislodge.

82

TO YOUNG WOMEN.

What is womanhood ? Is there any more important
question for young women to consider than this? It
should be the highest ambition of ever}7 young woman
to possess a true womanhood. Earth presents no higher
object of attainment. To be a woman, in the truest
and highest sense of the word, is to be the best thing
beneath the skies. To be a woman is something more
than to live eighteen or twenty years; something more
than to grow to the physical stature of women; some-
thing more than to wear flounces, exhibit dry-goods7
sport jewelry, catch the gaze of lewd-eyed men ; some-
thing more than to be a belle, a wife, or a mother. Put
all these qualifications together and they do but little
toward making a true woman.

Beauty and style are not the surest passports to
womanhood — some of the noblest specimens of woman
hood that the world has ever seen, have presented the
plainest and most unprepossessing appearance. A
woman's worth is to be estimated by the real goodness
of her heart, the greatness of her soul, and the purity
and sweetness of her character; and a woman with a
kindly disposition and well-balanced temper, is both
lovely and attractive, be her face ever so plain and her
figure ever so homely; she makes the best of wives and
the truest of mothers. She has a higher purpose in
living than the beautiful, }'et vain and supercilious
woman, who has no higher ambition than to flaunt her
finery on the street, or to gratify her inordinate vanity

TO YOUNG WOMEN.

83

by extracting flattery and praise from society, whose
compliments are as hollow as they are insincere.

Beauty is a dangerous gift. It is even so. Like wealth
it has ruined its thousands. Thousands of the most
beautiful women are destitute of common sense and
•common humanity. No gift from heaven is so general
•and so widely abused by woman as the gift of beauty.
In about nine cases in ten it makes her silly, senseless,
thoughtless, giddy, vain, proud, frivolous, selfish, low
and mean. I think I have seen more girls spoiled by
beauty than by any other one thing. " She is beautiful,
and she knows it," is as much as to say she is spoiled.
A beautiful girl is very likely to believe she was made
•to be looked at; and so she sets herself up for a show
.at every window, in every door, on every corner of the
street, in every company at which opportunity offers for
an exhibition of herself. And believing and acting
thus, she soon becomes good for nothing else, and when
she comes to be a middle-aged woman she is that
weakest, most sickening of all human things — a faded
beauty.

These facts have long since taught sensible men to
beware of beautiful women — to sound them carefully
before they give them their confidence. Beauty is shal-
low— only skin-deep; fleeting — only for a few years'
reign; dangerous — tempting to vanity and lightness of
mind; deceitful — dazzling often to bewilder; weak —
reigning only to ruin; gross — leading often to sensual
pleasure. And yet we say it need not be so. Beauty
is lovely and ought to be innocently possessed. It has
charms which ought to be used for good purposes. It

84

TO YOUNG WOMEN.

is a delightful gift, which ought to be received with
gratitude and worn with grace and meekness. It should
always minister to inward beauty. Every woman of
beautiful form and features should cultivate a beautiful
mind and heart.

Young women ought to hold a steady moral sway
over their male associates, so strong as to prevent them
from becoming such lawless rowdies. Why do they
not? Because they do not possess sufficient force of
character. They have not sufficient resolution and
energy of purpose. Their virtue is not vigorous. Their
moral wills are not resolute. Their influence is not
armed with executive power. Their goodness is not
felt as an earnest force of benevolent purpose. Their
moral convictions are not regarded as solemn resolves
to be true to God and duty, come what may. This is
the virtue of too many women. They would not have
a drunkard for a husband, but they would drink a glass
of wine with a fast young man. They would not use
profane language, but they are not shocked by its inci-
pient language, and love the society of men whom they
know are as profane as Lucifer out of their presence.
They would not be dishonest, but they will use a thou-
sand deceitful words and ways, and countenance the
society of men known as hawkers, sharpers and deceiv-
ers. They would not be irreligious, but they smile
upon the most irreligious men, and even show that they
love to be wooed by them. They would not be licen-
tious, but they have no stunning rebuke for licentious
men, and will even admit them on parol into their
society. This is the virtue of too many women — a

TO YOUNG WOMEN.

85

virtue scarcely worthy the name — really no virtue at
all — a milk-and-water substitute — a hypocritical, hol-
low pretension to virtue as unwomanly as it is disgrace-
ful. We believe that a young lady, by her constant,
consistent Christian example, may exert an untold
power. You do not know the respect and almost wor-
ship which young men, no matter how wicked they
may be themselves, pay to a consistent Christian lady,
be she young or old. If a young man sees that the
religion which, in youth, he was taught to venerate, is
lightly thought of, and perhaps sneered at, by the young
ladies with whom he associates, we can hardly expect
him to think that it is the thing for him. Let none say
that they have no influence at all. This is not possible.
You cannot live without having some sort of influence,
any more than you can without breathing. One thing
is just as unavoidable as the other. Beware, then, what
land of influence it is that you are constantly exertii g.
An invitation to take a glass of wine, or to play a gam *
of cards, may kindle the fires of intemperance or gam-
bling, which will burn forever. A jest given at the
expense of religion, a light, trifling manner in the house
of God, or any of the numerous ways in which you
may show your disregard for the souls of others, may
be the means of ruining many for time and eternity.

We want the girls to rival the boys in all that is
good, and refined, and ennobling. We want them
to rival the boys, as they well can, in learning, in
understanding, in virtues; in all noble qualities of mind
and heart, but not in any of those things that have
caused them justly or unjustly, to be described as sav-

86

TO YOUNG WOMEN.

ages. We want the girls to be gentle — not weak, but
gentle, and kind, and affectionate. We want to be sure,,
that wherever a girl is, there should be a sweet, subdu-
ing and harmonizing influence of purity, and truth,
and love, pervading and hallowing, from center to cir-
cumference, the entire circle in which she moves. If
the boys are savages, we want her to be their civilizer..
We want her to tame them, to subdue their ferocity, to>
soften their manners, and to teach them all needful les-
sons of order, and sobriety, and meekness, and patience.,,
and goodness.

The little world of self is not the limit that is to con-
fine all her actions. Her love was not destined to waste
its fires in the narrow chamber of a single human heart ;
no, a broader sphere of action is hers — a more expan-
sive benevolence. The light and heat of her love are
to he seen and felt far and wide. Who would not rather
tb as live a true life, than sit shivering over the smoul-
c ering embers of self-love ? Happy is that maiden who-
seeks to live this true life ! As time passes on, her own
character will be elevated and purified. Gradually will
she return toward that order of her being, which was
lost in the declension of mankind from that original
state of excellence in which they were created. She
will become, more and more, a true woman; will grow
wiser, and better, and happier. Her path through the
world will be as a shining light, and all who know her
will call her blessed.

A right view of life, then, which all should take at
the outset, is the one we have presented. Let every"
young lady seriously reflect upon this subject. Let her

TO YOUNG WOMEN.

87

remember that she is not designed by her Creator to
live for herself alone, but has a higher and nobler des-
tiny— that of doing good to others — of making others
happy. As the quiet streamlet that runs along the
valley nourishes a luxuriant vegetation, causing flow-
ers to bloom and birds to sing along its banks, so do
a kind look and happy countenance spread peace and
joy around.

Kindness is the ornament of man — it is the chief
glory of woman — it is, indeed, woman's true prerog-
ative— her sceptre and her crown. It is the sword
with which she conquers, and the charm with which
she captivates.

Young lady, would you be admired and beloved?
would you be an ornament to your sex, and a blessing
to your race? Cultivate this heavenly virtue. Wealth
may surround you with its blandishments, and beauty ?
learning, or talents, may give you admirers, but love
and kindness alone can captivate the heart. Whether
you live in a cottage or a palace, these graces can sur-
round you with perpetual sunshine, making you, and all
around you, happy.

Seek ye, then, fair daughters ! the possession of that
inward grace, whose essence shall permeate and vital-
ize the affections, — adorn the countenance, — make
mellifluous the voice, — and impart a hallowed beauty
even to your motions. Not merely that you may be
loved, would I urge this, but that you may, in truth, be
lovely, — that loveliness which fades not with time, nor
is marred or alienated by disease, but which neither
chance nor change can in any way despoil. We urge

88

DAUGHTER AND SISTER.

you, gentle maiden, to beware of the silken entice-
ments of the stranger, until your love is confirmed by
protracted acquaintance. Shun the idler, though his
coffers overflow with pelf. Avoid the irreverent, — -
the scoffer of hallowed things; and him uwho looks
upon the wine while it is red;" — him, too, "who hath
a high look and a proud heart," and who "privily slan-
dereth his neighbor." Do not heed the specious prattle
about "first love," and so place, irrevocably, the seal
upon your future destiny, before you have sounded, in
silence and secresy, the deep fountains of your own
heart. Wait, rather, until your own character and
that of him who would woo you, is more fully devel-
oped. Surely, if this "first love" cannot endure a
short probation, fortified by "the pleasures of hope,"
how can it be expected to survive }^ears of intimacy,
scenes of trial, distracting cares, wasting sickness, and
all the homely routine of practical life. Yet it is these
that constitute life, and the love that cannot abide them
is false and must die.

There are few things of which men are more proud
than of their daughters. The young father follows the
sportive girl with his eye, as he cherishes an emotion
of complacency, not so tender, but quite as active as the
mother's. The aged father leans on his daughter as the

DAUGHTER AND SISTER.

89

crutch of his declining years. An old proverb says
that the son is son till he is married, but the daughter
is daughter forever. This is something like the truth.
Though the daughter leaves the parental roof, she is
still followed by kindly regards. The gray-haired father
drops in every day to greet the beloved face ; and when
he pats the cheeks of the little grandchildren, it is
chiefly because the bond which unites him to them
passes through the heart of his darling Mary; she is
his daughter still. There are other ministries of love
more conspicuous than hers, but none in which a gentler,
lovelier spirit dwells, and none to which the heart's
warm requitals more joyfully respond. There is no
such thing as comparative estimate of a parent's affec-
tion for one or another child. There is little which he
needs to covet, to whom the treasure of a good child
has been given. A good daughter is the steady light
of her parent's house. Her idea is indissolubly con-
nected with that of his happy fireside. She is his
morning sunlight, and his evening star.

The grace, and vivacity, and tenderness of her sex,
have their place in the mighty sway which she holds
over his spirit. The lessons of recorded wisdom which
he reads with her eyes, come to his mind with a new
charm, as they blend with the beloved melody of her
voice. He scarcely knows weariness which her song
does not make him forget, or gloom which is proof
against the young brightness of her smile. She is the
pride and ornament of his hospitality, and the gentle
nurse of his sickness, and the constant agent in those
nameless, numberless acts of kindness which one chiefly

90 DAUGHTER AND SISTER

cares to have rendered because they are unpretending,
but all expressive proofs of love.

But now, turning to the daughters themselves, one
of their first duties at home is to make their mother
happy — to shun all that would pain or even perplex
her. "Always seeking the pleasure of others, alwa}7s
careless of her own," is one of the finest encomniums
ever pronounced upon a daughter. True : at that
period of life when dreams are realities , and realities
seem dreams, this may be forgotten. Mothers may
find only labor and sorrow where they had a right to
expect repose; but the daughter who would make her
home and her mother happy, should learn betimes that,
next to duty to God our Savior, comes duty to her who
is always the first to rejoice in our joy, and to weep
when we weep. Of all the proofs of heartlessness
which youth can give, the strongest is indifference to a
mother's happiness or sorrow.

How large and cherished a place does a good sister's
love always hold in the grateful memory of one who
has been blessed with the benefits of this relation as he
looks back to the home of his childhood! How many
are there who, in the changes of maturer years, have
found a sister's love, for themselves, and others dearer
than themselves, their ready and adequate resource.
With what a sense of security is confidence reposed in
a good sister, and with what assurance that it will b^
uprightly and considerately given, is her counsel sought!
How intimate is the friendship of such sisters, not
widely separated in age from one another! What a
reliance for warning, excitement, and sympathy has

DAUGHTER AND SISTER.

91

each secured in each! How many are the brothers to
whom, when thrown into circumstances of temptation,
the thought of a sister's love has been a constant, holy
presence, rebuking every wayward thought!

The intercourse of brothers and sisters forms another
important element in the happy influences of home. A
boisterous or a selfish boy may try to domineer over the
weaker or more dependent girl, but generally the latter
exerts a softening, sweetening charm. The brother
animates and heartens, the sister mollifies, tames, refines.
The vine-tree and its sustaining elm are the emblems
of such a relation — and by such agencies our "sons
may become like plants grown up in their youth, and
our daughters like corner-stones polished after the simili-
tude of a temple.' 1 Among Lord Byron's early miseries^
the terms on which he lived with his mother helped to
sour the majestic moral ruin — he was chafed and dis-
tempered thereby. The outbreaks of her passion, and
the unbridled impetuosity of his, made their companion-
ship uncongenial, and at length drove them far apart.
But Byron found a compensating power in the friendship
of his sister, and to her he often turned amid his wan-
derings, or his misanthropy and guilt, as an exile turns
to his home. aA world to roam in and a home with
thee," were words which embodied the feelings of his
void and aching heart, when all else that is lovely
appeared to have faded away. He had plunged into
the pleasures of sin till he was sated, wretched, and self-
consumed — the very Sardanapalus of vice. But "his
sister, his sweet sister," still shone like the morning star
of memory upon his dark soul.

DAUGHTER AND SISTER.

Sisters scarcely know the influence they have over
their brothers. A young man testifies that the greatest
proof oi the truth of Christian religion was his sister's
life. Often the simple request of a lady will keep a
young man from doing wrong. We have known this
to be the case very frequently; and young men have
been kept from breaking the Sabbath, from drinking,
from chewing, just because a lady whom they respected,
and for whom they had an affection, requested it. A
tract given, an invitation to go to church, a request that
your friend would read the Bible daily, will often be
regarded, when a more powerful appeal from other
sources would fall unheeded upon his heart. Many of
the gentlemen whom you meet in society are away
from the influence of parents and sisters , and they will
-respond to any interest taken in their welfare. We all
speak of a young man's danger from evil associates, and
the very bad influence which his dissipated gentlemen
associates have upon him. We believe it is all true
that a gentleman's character is formed to a greater
extent by the ladies that he associates with before he
becomes a complete man of the world. We think, in
other words, that a young man is pretty much what his
sisters and young lady friends choose to make him.
We knew a family where the sisters encouraged their
young brothers to smoke, thinking it was manly, and to
mingle with gay, dissipated fellows because they thought
it "smart;" and they did mingle with them, body and
soul, and abused the same sisters shamefully. The
'nfluence began further back than with their gentlemen
•companions. It began with their sisters, and was car-

ASSOCIATES.

9a.

ried on through the forming years of their character.
On the other hand, if sisters are watchful and affection-
ate they may in various ways — by entering into any
little plan with interest, by introducing their younger
brothers into good ladies' society — lead them along till
their character is formed, and then a high respect for
ladies, and a manly self-respect, will keep them from
mingling in low society.

Thou art noble ; yet, I see,
Thy honorable Metal may be wrought
From that it is disposed. Therefore 'tis meet
That noble Minds keep ever with their Likes :
For who so firm, that cannot be seduced ?

— Shakspeare.

An author is known by his writings, a mother by
her daughter, a fool by his words, and all men by their
companions.

Intercourse with persons of decided virtue and excel-
lence is of great importance in the formation of a good
character. The force of example is powerful; we are
creatures of imitation, and, by a necessary influence,
our tempers and habits are very much formed on the
model of those with whom we familiarly associate.
Better be alone than in bad company. Evil commu-
nications corrupt good manners. Ill qualities are
catching as well as diseases; and the mind is at least

94

ASSOCIATES.

as much, if not a great deal more, liable to infection,
than the body. Go with mean people, and you think
life is mean.

The human race requires to be educated, and it is
doubtless true that the greater part of that education is
obtained through example rather than precept. This
is especially true respecting character and habits. How-
natural is it for a child to look up to those around him
for an example of imitation, and how readily does he
copy all that he sees done, good or bad. The import-
ance of a good example on which the young may exer-
cise this powerful and active element of their nature, is
a matter of the utmost moment. To the Phrenologist
every faculty assumes an importance almost infinite,
and perhaps none more so than that of imitation. It is
a trite, but true maxim, that " a man is known by the
company he keeps." He naturally assimilates, by the
force of imitation, to the habits and manners of those
by whom he is surrounded. We know persons, who
walk much with the lame, who have learned to walk
with a hitch or limp like their lame friends. Vice
stalks in the streets unabashed, and children copy it.
Witness the urchin seven years old trying to ape his
seniors in folly, by smoking the cigar-stumps which
they have cast aside. In time, when his funds improve,
he will wield the long nine, and be a full-fledged
u loafer." This faculty is usually more active in the
young than in adult life, and serves to lead them to
imitate that which their seniors do, before their reason-
ing powers are sufficiently developed and instructed to
enable them to reason out a proper course of action.

ASSOCIATES.

95

Thus by copying others, they do that which is appro-
priate, right, or wrong, without knowing why, or the
principles and consequences involved in their actions.

The awfully sad consequences of evil associations is
exhibited in the history of almost all criminals. The
case of a man named Brown, recently executed in
Toronto, Canada, is an example. He was born in
Cambridgeshire, England, of parents who were mem-
bers of the Church of England; and in a sketch of his
life, written at his dictation, he attributes his downfall
to early disobedience and to bad companions, which led
to dissipation and finally plunged him into associations
with the most dissolute and lawless characters. They
led him on in transgression and sin, which ended in his
being brought to the scaffold. On the gallows he made
the following speech: aThis is a solemn day for me,
boys! I hope this will be a warning to you against bad
company — I hope it will be a lesson to all young people,
and old as well as young, rich and poor. It was that
that brought me here to-day to my last end, though
I am innocent of the murder I am about to suffer for.
Before my God I am innocent of the murder! I never
committed this or any other murder. I know nothing
of it. I am going to meet my Maker in a few minutes.
May the Lord have mercy on my soul! Amen, amen."
What a terrible warning his melancholy example affords
to young men never to deviate from the straight line of
duty. Live with the culpable, and you will be very
likely to die with the criminal. Bad company is like a
nail driven into a post, which after the first or second
blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty ; but being

96

ASSOCIATES.

once driven in up to the head, the pinchers cannot take
hold to draw it out, which can only be done by the
destruction of the wood. You may be ever so pure,
you cannot associate with bad companions without
falling into bad odor. Evil company is like tobacco
smoke — you cannot be long in its presence without
carrying away taint of it. "Let no man deceive him-
self," says Petrarch, "by thinking that the contagions
of the soul are less than those of the body. They are
yet greater; they sink deeper, and come on more
unsuspectedly." From impure air, we take diseases;
from bad company, vice and imperfection. Avoid, as
much as you can, the company of all vicious persons
whatever; for no vice is alone, and all are infectious.

Men carry unconscious signs of their life about them,
those that come from the forge and those from the lime
and mortar, and those from dusty travel bear signs of
being workmen and of their work. One needs not ask
a merry face or a sad one whether it hath come from
joy or from grief. Tears and laughter tell their own
story. Should one come home with fruit, we say —
"You have come from the orchard." If with hands
full of wild flowers, "You have come from the field."
If one's garments smell of mingled odors, we say,
"You have walked in a garden." So with associ-
ations— those that walk with the just, the upright,
have the sweetest incense that has ever anointed man
Let no man deceive himself.

Do you love the society of the vulgar? Then you are
already debased in your sentiments. Do you seek to
be with the profane? in your heart you are like them.

ASSOCIATES.

97

Are jesters and buffoons your choice friends? He who
loves to laugh at folly is himself a fool. Do you love
and seek the society of the wise and good? Is this
your habit? Had you rather take the lowest seat
among these than the highest seat among^thers ? Then
you have already learned to be good. You may not
make very much progress, but even a good beginning
is not to be despised. Hold on your way, and seek to
be the companion of those that fear God. So you shall
be wise for yourself, and wise for eternity.

No man of position can allow himself to associate,
without prejudice, with the profane, the Sabbath-break-
ers, the drunken and the licentious, for he lowers him-
self, without elevating them. The sweep is not made
the less black by rubbing against the well-dressed and
the clean, while they are inevitably defiled. Nothing
elevates us so much as the presence of a spirit similar,
yet superior, to our own. What is companionship,
where nothing that improves the intellect is communi-
cated, and where the larger heart contracts itself to the
model and dimension of the smaller?

Washington was wont to say, uBe courteous to all,
but intimate with few, knd let those few be well tried
before you give them your confidence." It should be
the aim of young men to go into good society. We do
not mean the rich, the proud and fashionable, but the
society of the wise, the intelligent and good. Where
you find men that know more than you do, and from
whose conversation one can gain information, it is
always safe to be found. It has broken down many a
man by associating with the low and vulgar, where the
7

'98

ASSOCIATES.

ribald song and the indecent story were introduced to
excite laughter. If you wish to be respected — if you
desire happiness and not misery, we advise you to asso-
ciate with the intelligent and good. Strive for mental
excellence and strict integrity, and you never will be
found in the sinks of pollution, and on the benches of
retailers and gamblers. Once habituate yourself to a
virtuous course — once secure a love of good society,
and no punishment would be greater than by accident
to be obliged for a half a day to associate with the low
and vulgar. Try to frequent the company of your
betters. In book and life it is the most wholesome
society; learn to admire rightly; that is the great pleas-
ure of life. Note what the great men admire — they
admire great things; narrow spirits admire basely and
worship meanly. Some persons choose their associates
as they do other useful animals, preferring those from
whom they expect the most service. Procure no friends
in haste, nor, if once secured, in haste abandon them.
Be slow in choosing an associate and slower to change
him; slight no man for poverty, nor esteem any one for
his wealth. Good friends should not be easily forgotten,
nor used as suits of apparel, which, when we have worn
them threadbare, we cast off and call for new. When
once you profess yourself a friend, endeavor to be
always such. He can never have any true friends that
will be often changing them. Whoever moves you to
part with a true and tried friend, has certainly a design
to make way for a treacherous enemy. To part with a
tried friend without very great provocation, is unreason-
able levity. Nothing but plain malevolence can justify

ASSOCIATES.

99

disunion. The loss of a friend is like that of a limb;
time may heal the anguish of the wound, but the loss
cannot be repaired.

When you have once found your proper associate,
then stick to him — make him your friend — a close
friend ; do all you can to improve him and learn all you
can of him; let his good qualities become yours; one
is not bound to bear a part in the follies of a friend,
but rather to dissuade him from them; even though he
cannot consent to tell him plainly, as Phocian did Anti-
pater, who said to him, "I cannot be both your friend
and flatterer.' ' It is a good rule always to back your
friends and face your enemies. Whoever would reclaim
his friend, and bring him to a true and perfect under-
standing of himself, may privately admonish, but never
publicly reprehend him. An open admonition is an
open disgrace.

Have the courage to cut the most agreeable acquaint-
ance you have, when you are convinced he lacks prin-
ciple; a friend should bear with a friend's infirmities,
but not with his vices. He that does a base thing in
zeal for his friend, burns the golden thread that ties
their hearts together.

If you have once chosen the proper person as an
associate and a friend, then you have a friend for life-
time, and you will always cherish and honor him; but
the neglected child, the reckless youth, the wrecked
and wretched man will haunt you with memories of
melancholy, with grief and despair. How we will
curse those associates that dragged us down to ruin

100

ASSOCIATES.

and destruction, and how love to repeat the names of
old friends.

"Old friends!" What a multitude of deep and varied
emotions are called forth from the soul by the utterance
of these two words. What thronging memories of
other days crowd the brain when they are spoken. Ah,
there is a magic in the sound and the spell which it
creates is both sad and pleasing. As we sit by our
fireside, while the winds are making wild melody with-
out the walls of our cottage, and review the scenes of
by-gone years which flit before us in swift succession,
dim and shadowy as the recollections of a dream —
how those "old familiar faces" will rise up and haunt
our vision with their well remembered features. But
ah, where are they? those friends of our youth — those
kindred spirits who shared our joy and sorrows when
first we started in the pilgrimage of life. Companions
of our early days, they are endeared to us by many a
tie, and we now look back through the vista of years
upon the hours of our communion, as upon green oases
in a sandy waste. Years have passed over us with
their buds and flowers, their fruits and snows; and
where now are those "old familiar faces?" They are
scattered, and over many of their last narrow homes
the thistle waves its lonely head ; " after life's fitful
fever they sleep well." Some are buffeting the billows
of time's stormy sea in distant lands; though they are
absent our thoughts are often with them.

INFLUENCE.

101

%nUnmtt.

Away up among the Alleghanies there is a spring
so small that a single ox on a summer's day could drain
it dry. It steals its unobtrusive way among the hills,
till it spreads out into the beautiful Ohio. Thence it
stretches away a thousand miles, leaving on its banks
more than a hundred villages and cities and many a
cultivated farm; then joining the Mississippi, it stretches
away some twelve hundred miles more, till it falls into
the emblem of eternity. It is one of the greatest
tributaries to the ocean, which . obedient only to God,
shall roar till the angel with one foot on the sea and the
other on the land, shall swear that time shall be no
longer. So with moral influence. It is a rill — a
rivulet — an ocean, and as boundless and fathomless as
eternity.

"The stone, flung from my careless hand into the
lake, splashed down into the depths of the flowing
water, and that was all. No, it was not all. Look at
those concentric rings, rolling their tiny ripples among
the sedgy reeds, dippling the overhanging boughs of
yonder willow, and producing an influence, slight but
conscious, to the very shores of the lake itself. That
stray word, that word of pride or scorn, flung from my
lips in casual company, produces a momentary depres-
sion, and that is all. No, it is not all. It deepened
that man's disgust at godliness, and it sharpened the
edge of that man's sarcasm, and it shamed that half-
converted one out of his penitent misgivings, and it
produced an influence, slight, but eternal, on the destiny

102

HABIT.

of a human life. O, it is a terrible power that I have —
this power of influence — and it clings to me. I cannot
shake it off. It is born with me; it has grown with my
growth, and is strengthened with my strength, it
speaks, it walks, it moves; it is powerful in every look
of my eye, in every word of my lips, in every act of
my life. I cannot live to myself. I must either be a
light to illumine, or a tempest to destroy. I must either
be an Abel, who, by his immortal righteousness, being
dead yet speaketh, or an Achan, the sad continuance of
whose otherwise forgotten name is the proof that man
perishes not alone in his iniquity. Dear reader, this
necessary element of power belongs to you The
sphere may be contracted, thine influence may be small,
but a sphere and influence you surely have."

Every human being is a center of influence for good
or for ill. No man can live unto himself. The meshes
of a net are not more surely knit together than man to
man. We may forget this secret, silent influence. But
we are exerting it by our deeds, we are exerting it by
our words, we are exerting it by our very thoughts —
and he is wise with a wisdom more than that of earth
who seeks to put forth the highest power for good, be
his home a hut or a hall, a cabin or a palace.

H abit in a child is at first like a spider's web ; if neg-
lected it becomes a thread of twine; next, a cord of

HABIT.

103

rope; finally, a cable — then who can break it? There
are habits contracted by bad example, or bad manage-
ment, before we have judgment to discern their ap-
proaches, or because the eye of reason is laid asleep, or
has not compass of view sufficient to look around on
ever}* quarter.

O, the tyranny, the despotism of a bad habit! Cole-
ridge, one of the subtlest intellects and finest poets of
his time, battled for twenty years before he could
emancipate himself from his tyrant, opium. He went
into voluntary imprisonment. He hired a man to watch
him day and night, and keep him by force from tasting
the pernicious drug. He formed resolution alter reso-
lution. Yet, during all the best years of his life, he
wasted his substance and his health, neglected his family,
and lived degraded and accursed because he had not
resolution to abstain. He would lay plans to cheat the
very man whom he paid to keep the drug from him,
and bribe the jailor to whom he had voluntarily surren-
dered himself.

Terrible, terrible is the despotism of a bad habit.
The case of Coleridge is an extreme one of course.
But there are many, whose eyes these lines will meet,
who are as truly the slaves of a perverted appetite as
he. Their despot may be opium, tobacco, drink, or
worse; but they are so completely under the dominion
of their master, that nothing short of a moral war of
independence, which should task all their own strength,
and all they could borrow from others, would suffice to
deliver them.

J. B. Gough uses the following as a powerful illustra-

104

HABIT.

tion: I remember once riding from Buffalo to Niagara
Falls. I said to a gentleman, "What river is that, sir?"

"That," he said, ais Niagara river.'"

"Well, it is a beautiful stream, said I; "bright and
fair and glassy; how far off are the rapids?"

" Only a mile or two," was the reply.

"Is it possible that only a mile from us we shall find
the water in the turbulence which it must show near to
the falls?"

"You will find it so, sir." And so I found it; and the
first sight of Niagara I shall never forget. Now, launch
your bark on that Niagara river; it is bright, smooth,
beautiful and glassy. There is a ripple at the bow ; the
silver wave you leave behind adds to the enjoyment.

Down the stream you glide, oars, sails and helm in
proper trim, and you set out on your pleasure excur-
sion. Suddenly some one cries out from the bankr
"Young men, ahoy!"

"What is it?"

"The rapids are below you."

"Ha! ha! we have heard of the rapids, but we are
not such fools as to get there. If we go too fast, then
we shall up with the helm and steer to the shore; we
will set the mast in the socket, hoist the sail, and speed
to the land. Then on, boys; don't be alarmed — there
is no danger."

"Young men, ahoy there!"

"What is it?"

"The rapids are below you!"

"Ha! ha! we will laugh and quaff; all things delight
us. What care we for the future! No man ever saw

HABIT. 105

it. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. We will
enjoy life while we may; will catch pleasure as it flies.
This is enjoyment; time enough to steer out of danger
when we are sailing swiftly with the current.' 1

"Young men, ahoy!"

"What is it?"

"Beware! Beware! The rapids are below you!"

Now you see the water foaming all around. See how
fast you pass that point! Up with the helm! Now
turn! Pull hard! quick! quick! quick! pull for your
lives! pull till the blood starts from the nostrils, and the
veins stand like whip-cords upon the brow! Set the
mast in the socket! hoist the sail! — ah! ah! it is too
late! Shrieking, cursing, howling, blaspheming, over
they go.

Thousands go over the rapids every year, through
the power of habit, crying all the while, "When I find
out that it is injuring me I will give it up!"

Few people form habits of wrong-doing deliberately
or willfully ; they glide into them by degrees and almost
unconsciously, and before they are aware of danger,
the habits are confirmed and require resolute and per-
sistent effort to effect a change. "Resist beginning,"
was a maxim of the ancients, and should be preserved as
a landmark in our day. Those who are prodigal or pas-
sionate, or indolent, or visionary, soon make shipwreck
of themselves, and drift about the sea of life, the prey
of every wind and current, vainly shrieking for help,
till at last they drift awa}' into darkness and death.

Take care that you are not drifting. See that you
have fast hold of the helm. The breakers of life for-

106 HABIT.

ever roar under the lee. and adverse gales continually
blow on the shore. Are you watching how she heads?
Do you keep a firm grip of the wheel? If you give
way but for one moment you may drift hopelessly into
the boiling vortex. Young men, take care! It rests
with yourselves alone under God, whether you reach
port triumphantly or drift to ruin.

Be not slow in the breaking of a sinful custom; a
quick, courageous resolution is better than a gradual
deliberation; in such a combat, he is the bravest soldier
who lays about him without fear or wit. Wit pleads,
fear disheartens; he that would kill hydra, had better
strike off one neck than five heads; fell the tree, and
the branches are soon cut off.

Whatever be the cause, says Lord Karnes, it is an
established fact, that we are much influenced by custom;
it hath an effect upon our pleasures, upon our actions,
and even upon our thoughts and sentiments. Habit
makes no figure during the vivacity of youth; in
middle age it gains ground; and in old age, governs
without control. In that period of life, generally speak-
ing, we eat at a certain hour, take exercise at a certain
hour, go to rest at a certain hour, all by the direction
of habit; nay, a particular seat, table, bed, comes to be
essential; and a habit in any of these cannot be contra-
dicted without uneasiness.

Man, it has been said, is a bundle of habits; and
habit is second nature. Metastasio entertained so
strong an opinion as to the power of repetition in act
and thought, that he said, "All is habit in mankind,
even virtue itself."

HABIT.

107

Evil habits must be conquered, or they will conquei
us and destroy our peace and happiness.

Vicious habits are so great a stain upon human
nature, said Cicero, and so odious in themselves, that
every person actuated by right reason would avoid
them, though he was sure they would always be con-
cealed both from God and man, and had no future pun-
ishment entailed upon them.

Vicious habits, when opposed, offer the most vigorous
resistance on the first attack. At each successive
encounter this resistance grows fainter and fainter, until
finally it ceases altogether and the victory is achieved.

Habit is man's best friend or worst enemy; it can
exalt him to the highest pinnacle of virtue, honor and
happiness, or sink him to the lowest depths of vice,
shame and misery.

We may form habits of honesty, or knavery; truth,
or falsehood; of industry, or idleness; frugality, or
extravagance; of patience, or impatience; self-denial,
or self-indulgence ; of kindness, cruelty, politeness, rude-
ness, prudence, perseverance, circumspection. In short
there is not a virtue, nor a vice ; not an act of body, nor
of mind, to which we may not be chained down by this
despotic power.

It is a great point for young men to begin well; for
it is in the beginning of life that that system of conduct
is adopted which soon assumes the force of habit.
Begin well, and the habit of doing well will become
quite as easy as the habit of doing badly. Pitch upon
that course of life which is the most excellent, and
habit will render it the most delightful. Well begun is

108

COMPANY.

half ended, says the proverb; and a good beginning is
half the battle. Many promising young men have
irretrievably injured themselves by a first false step at
the commencement of life; while others, of much less
promising talents, have succeeded simply by beginning
well, and going onward. The good practical beginning
is, to a certain extent, a pledge, a promise, and an assu-
rance, of the ultimate prosperous issue. There is many
a poor creature, now crawling through life, miserable
himself and the cause of sorrow to others, who might
have lifted up his head and prospered, if, instead of
merely satisfying himself with resolutions of well-doing,
he had actually gone to work and made a good practical
•beginning.

Congenial passions souls together bind,
And every calling mingles with its kind ;
Soldier unites with soldier, swain with swain,
The mariner with him that roves the main.

— F. Lewis.

That we may be known by the company we fre-
quent, has become proverbial. For, when unrestrained,
we are prone to choose and associate with those whose
manners and dispositions are agreeable and congenial
to ours. Hence, when we find persons frequenting any
company whatsoever, we are disposed to believe that

COMPANY.

10S

such company is congenial with their feelings, not only
in regard to their intellectual capacities and accomplish-
ments, but also their moral disposition and their partic-
ular manner in life.

Good company not only improves our manners, but
also our minds; for intelligent associates will become a
source of enjoyment, as well as of edification. If they
be pious they will improve our morals ; if they be polite
they will tend to improve our manners; if they be
learned they will add to our knowledge and correct
our errors. On the other hand, if they be immoral,
ignorant, vulgar, their impress will most surely be left
upon us. It therefore becomes a matter of no trivial
concern to select and associate with proper company,,
while avoiding that which is certainly prejudicial.

We should always seek the company of those wha
are known to possess superior merit and natural endow-
ments; for then, by being assimilated in manners and
disposition, we rise. Whereas, by associating with
those who are our inferiors in every respect, we become
assimilated with them, and by that assimilation become
degraded. Upon the whole much care and judgment
are necessary in selecting properly that company which
will be profitable. Yet this is not a point of so great
interest among females as men; because they are not
necessarily thrown into such promiscuous associations
of such diversity of character as the latter. Neverthe-
less, the greater care and prudence are requisite to
them, should they happen in such circles, to avoid their
pernicious influence, to which most are too prone to-
yield.

110

COMPANY.

Good company is that which is composed of intelli-
gent and well-bred persons; whose language is chaste
and good; whose sentiments are pure and edifying;
whose deportment is such as pure and Well-regulated
education and correct morals dictate; and whose con-
duct is directed and restrained by the pure precepts of
religion.

When we have the advantage of such company, it
should be the object of our zeal "to imitate their real
perfections; copy their politeness, their carriage, their
address, and the easy well-bred turn of their conversa-
tion ; but we should remember that, let them shine ever
so bright, their vices (if they have any) are so many
blemishes, which we should no more endeavor to imi-
tate than we should make artificial warts on our faces
because some very handsome lady happened to have
one by nature. We should, on the contrary, think
how much handsomer she would have been without it."

What can be more pleasing and more angelic, than
a young lady, virtuous and adorned with the graces
and elegances of finished politeness, based upon a sound
intellect, and well improved mind!

" For her inconstant man might cease to range,
And gratitude forbid desire to change."

The reflection is pleasing, that it is in the power of
all to acquire an elegance of manner, although they
may be deprived of the advantages to be derived from
a liberal education. At least they may attain to that
degree of elegance and manners, by judicious selection
of company, that will render them pleasing in any

FORCE OF CHARACTER.

Ill

social circle, whether at home or abroad. This will
excite interest, which will grow into respect; from
which always springs that pure, ardent, and affection
ate attachment which alone forms the. only generous
and indissoluble connection between the sexes ; that
which the lapse of time serves only to confirm, and
nought but death can destroy.

If so much importance be attached to the prudent
selection of company and associates, and if this be of
such vital interest to every young female, how careful
should she be in taking to her bosom for life a compan-
ion of dissolute habits and morals. Such an act might
destroy all the domestic felicity she might have hoped
to enjoy, and be a source of constant sorrow to her
through life.

" Oh shun my friend, avoid that dangerous coast
Where peace expires, and fair affection's lost."

For no connection or friendship can be fond and last-
ing, where a conformity of inclination and disposition
does not exist; but where this exists, all passions and
finer feelings of the soul gently harmonize, and form
one common and lasting interest.

What you can effect depends on what you are.
You put your whole self into all that you do. If that

112

FORGE OF CHARACTER.

self be small, and lean, and mean, your entire life-work
is paltry, your words have no force, your influence has
no weight. If that self be true and high, pure and
kind, vigorous and forceful, your strokes are blows,
your notes staccatos, your work massive, your influence
cogent — you can do what you will. Whatever your
position, you are a power, you are felt as a kingly spirit,
you are as one having authority. Too many think of
character chiefly in its relation to the life beyond the
grave. I certainly would not have less thought of it
with reference to that unknown future, on the margin
of which some of us undoubtedly are at this moment
standing; but I do wish that more consideration were
bestowed upon its earthly uses. I would have young
men, as they start in life, regard character as a capital,
much surer to yield full returns than any other capital,
unaffected by panics and failures, fruitful when all other
investments lie dormant, having as certain promise in
the present life as in that which is to come.

Franklin, also, attributed his success as a public man,
not to his talents or his powers of speaking — for these
were but moderate — but to his known integrity of
character. "Hence, it was," he says, "that I had so
much weight with my fellow-citizens. I was but a bad
speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in
my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and
yet I generally carried my point." Character creates
confidence in men in every station of life. It was said
of the first Emperor Alexander of Russia that his per-
sonal character was equivalent to a constitution. During
the wars of the Fronde, Montaigne was the only man

FORCh OF CHARACTER.

113

among the /rench gentry who kept his castle gates,
unbarred; and it was said of him, that his personal
character was worth more to him than a regiment of
horse.

There are trying and perilous circumstances in life,
which show how valuable and important a good char-
acter is. It is a sure and strong staff of support, when
everything else fails. It is the Acropolis which remains
impregnable, imparting security and peace when all the
other defenses have been surrendered to the enemy.
The higher walks of life are treacherous and danger-
ous; the lower full of obstacles and impediments. We
can only be secure in either, by maintaining those
principles which are just, praiseworthy, and pure, and
which inspire bravery in ourselves and confidence in
others.

Truthfulness, integrity and goodness — qualities that
hang not on any man's breath — form the essence of
manly character, or, as one of our old writers has it,
" that inbred loyalty unto virtue which can serve her
without a livery. " He who possesses these qualities^
united with strength of purpose, carries with him a
power which is irresistible. He is strong to do good,
strong to resist evil, and strong to bear up under diffi
culty and misfortune. When Stephen of Coloma fell
into the hands of his base assailants, and they asked
him, in derision, "Where is now your fortress?"
" Here," was his bold reply, placing his hand upon his
heart. It is in misfortune that the character of the
upright man shines forth with the greatest luster; and,
when all else fails, he takes stand upon his integrity and
8

114

FORCE OF CHARACTER.

his courage. In the famous battle at Thermopylae, the
three hundred Spartans, who alone had refused to
abandon the scene of action, withstood the enemy with
such vigor that they were obliged to retire wearied and
conquered during three successive days, till the enemy
suddenly falling upon their rear, crushed them to pieces.

Strength of character consists of two things — power
of will and power of self-restraint. It requires two
things, therefore, for its existence — strong feelings and
strong command over them. Now, it is here we make
a great mistake; we mistake strong feelings for strong-
character. A man who bears all before him, before
whose frown domestics tremble, and whose bursts of
fury make the children of the household quake —
because he has his will obeyed, and his own way in all
things, we call him a strong man. The truth is, that
is the weak man; it is his passions that are strong; he,
mastered by them, is weak. You must measure the
strength of a man by the power of the feelings he sub-
dues, not by the power of those which subdue him.
And hence composure is very often the highest result
of strength.

Did we never see a man receive a flagrant insult and
only grow a little pale, and then reply quietly? This
is a man spiritually strong. Or did we never see a man
in anguish, stand, as if carved out of solid rock, master-
ing himself? Or one bearing a hopeless daily trial
remain silent and never tell the world what cankered
his home peace? That is strength. He who, with
strong passions, remains chaste; he who, keenly sensi-
tive, with manly powers of indignation in him, can be

FORCE OF CHARACTER.

115

provoked, and yet restrain himself and forgive — these
are the strong men, the spiritual heroes.

The truest criterion of a man's character and conduct,
is, invariably, to be found in the opinion of his nearest
relations, who, having daily and hourly opportunities of
forming a judgment of him, will not fail in doing so.
It is a far higher testimony in his favor, for him to
secure the esteem and love of a few individuals within
the privacy of his own home, than the good opinion of
hundreds in his immediate neighborhood, or that of ten
times the number residing at a distance. The most
trifling actions that affect a man's credit are to be
regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the
morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes
him easy six months longer; but if he sees you at a
billiard table, or hears your voice at a tavern, when you
should be at work, he sends for his money the next day.

Deportment, honesty, caution, and a desire to do
right carried out in practice, are to human character
what truth, reverence, and love are to religion. They
are the unvaried elements of a good reputation. Such
virtues can never be reproached, although the vulgar
and despicable may scoff at them ; but it is not so much
in their affected revulsion at them, as it is in the wish
to reduce them to the standard of their own degraded
natures, and vitiated passions. Let such scoff and
sneer — let them laugh and ridicule as much as they
may — a strict, upright, onward course will evince to
the world and to them, that there is more manly inde-
pendence in one forgiving smile, than in all the pretended
exceptions to worthiness in the society of the mean and

116

INTEGRITY.

vulgar. Virtue must have its admirers, and firmness
of principle, both moral and religious, will ever com-
mand the proudest encomium of the intelligent world,
to the exclusion of every' other thing connected with
human existence.

That character is power is true in a much higher
sense than that knowledge is power. Mind without
heart, intelligence without conduct, cleverness without
goodness, are powers in their way, but they may be
powers only for mischief. We may* be instructed or
amused by them, but it is sometimes as difficult to
admire them as it would be to admire the dexterity of
a pickpocket or the horsemanship of a highwayman.

Young men look about them and see a great meas-
ure of worldly success awarded to men without princi-
ple. They see the trickster crowned with public honors,
they see the swindler rolling in wealth, they see the
sharp man, the over-reaching man, the unprincipled
man, the liar, the demagogue, the time-server, the trim-
mer, the scoundrel who cunningly manages, though
constantly disobeying moral law and trampling upon
social courtesy, to keep himself out of the clutches of the
legal police, carrying off the prizes of wealth and place.
All this is a demoralizing puzzle and a fearful temptation;
and multitudes of young men are not strong enough to

INTEGRITY.

117

stand before it. They ought to understand that in this
wicked world there is a great deal of room where there
is integrity. Great trusts may be sought by scoundrels,
but great trusts never seek them; and perfect integrity
is at a premium even among scoundrels. There are
some trusts that they will never confer on each other.
There are occasions where they need the services of
true men, and they do not find them in shoals and in
the mud, but alone and in pure water.

Integrity is the foundation of all that is high in char-
acter among mankind; other qualities may add to its
splendor, but if this essential requisite be wanting all
their luster fades. Our integrity is never worth so
much to us as when we have lost everything to keep it.
Integrity without knowledge is weak; knowledge with-
out integrity is dangerous and dreadful. Integrity,
however rough, is better than smooth dissimulation.
Let a man have the reputation of being fair and upright
in his dealings, and he will possess the confidence of all
who know him. Without these qualities every other
merit will prove unavailing. Ask concerning a man,
"Is he active and capable?" Yes. "Industrious, tem-
perate, and regular in his habits?" O, yes. "Is he
honest? is he trustworthy?" Why, as to that, I am
sorry to say that he is not to be trusted; he wants
watching; he is a little tricky, and will take an undue
advantage, if he can. "Then I will have nothing to do
with him," will be the invariable reply. Why, then, is
honesty the best policy? Because, without it you will
get a bad name, and everybody will shun you.

The world is always asking for men who are not for

118

INTEGRITY.

sale; men who are honest, sound from centre to circum-
ference, true to the heart's core; men who will condemn
wrong in friend or foe, in themselves as well as others;
men whose consciences are as steady as the needle to
the pole ; men who will stand for the right if the
heavens totter and the earth reels; men who can tell
the truth, and look the world and the devil right in the
eye; men that neither brag nor run; men that neither
flag nor flinch; men who can have courage without
shouting to it ; men in whom the courage of everlasting
life runs still, deep, and strong; men who do not cry,
nor cause their voices to be heard on the streets, but
who will not fail nor be discouraged till judgment be
set in the earth; men who know their message and tell
it; men who know their places and fill them; men who
know their own business; men who will not lie; men
who are not too lazy to work, not too proud to be poor;
men who are willing to eat what they have earned, and
wear what they have paid for. It is always safe to
trust those who can trust themselves, but when a man
suspects his own integrity, it is time he was suspected
by others. Moral degradation always begins at home.
Honesty is never gained or lost suddenly, or by acci-
dent. Moral strength or moral weakness takes posses-
sion of us by slow and imperceptible degrees.

Avoid — and young men especially — avoid all base,
servile, underhand, sneaking ways. Part with anything
rather than your integrity and conscious rectitude; flee
from injustice as you would from a viper's fangs; avoid
a lie as you would the gates of hell. Some there are
who are callous as to this. Some there are who, in

INTEGRITY.

119

stooping to mercantile dishonor and baseness — in driv-
ing the immoral bargain — think they have done a
clever action. Things are often called by their wrong
names; duplicity is called shrewdness, and wrong-heart -
edness is called long-headedness; evil is called good,
and good evil, and darkness is put for light, and light
for darkness. Well ! be it so. You may be prosperous
in your own eyes; you may have realized an envied
fortune; you may have your carriage, and plate, and
servants, and pageantry; but rather the shielding and
the crust of bread with a good conscience, than the
stately dwelling or palace without it. Rather than the
marble mausoleum, which gilds and smothers tales of
heartless villainy and fraud — rather, far rather, that
lowly heap of grass we w^ere wont often to gaze upon
in an old village churchyard, with the simple record of
a cotter's virtues: "Here lies an honest man/" There
is nothing more sad than to be carried like a vessel
away from the straight course of principle; to be left a
stranded outcast thing on the sands of dishonor: a man
bolstering himself up in a position he is not entitled to.
"That is a man of capital" says the world, pointing
to an unscrupulous and successful swindler. Capital!
What is capital ? Is it what a man has P Is it counted
by pounds and pence, stocks and shares, by houses and
lands ? No ! capital is not what a man has, but what a
man is. Character is capital; honor is capital. That
is the most fearful of ruin when character is gone, when
integrity is sold, when honor is bartered for a miserable
mess of earthly pottage. God save us from ruin like
this ! Perish what may ; perish gold, silver, houses,

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POOR BOYS.

lands; let the winds of misfortune dash our vessel ok
the sunken rock, but let integrity be like the valued
keepsake which the sailor boy lashed wich the rope
round his body, the only thing we care to save. Let
me die; but let angels read, if friends cannot afford to
erect the grave stone: "Here lies an honest man."

Many men have been obscure in their origin and
birth, but great and glorious in life and death. They
have been born and nurtured in villages, but have
reigned and triumphed in cities. They were first
laid in the mangers of poverty and obscurity, but
have afterwards become possessors of thrones and
palaces. Their fame is like the pinnacle which
ascends higher and higher, until at last it becomes a
most conspicuous and towering object of attraction.

Columbus was the son of a weaver, and a weaver
himself. Cervantes was a common soldier. Homer
was the son of a small farmer. Moliere was the son
of a tapestry maker. Demosthenes was the son of a
cutler. Terrence was a slave. Oliver Cromwell was
the son of a London brewer. Howard was an appren-
tice to a grocer. Franklin was the son of a tallow-
chandler and soap boiler. Dr. Thomas, Bishop of
Worcester, was the son of a linen-draper. Daniel
Defoe, hostler and son of a butcher. Whitfield was

POO It BOYS.

121

the son of an inn-keeper. Virgil was the son of a
porter. Horace was the son of a shop keeper. Shaks-
peare was the son of a wood stapler. . Milton was the
son of a money scrivener. Robert Burns was a plow-
man in Ayrshire. Mohammed, called the prophet, a
driver of asses. Madame Barnadotte was a washer-
woman of Paris. Napoleon was of an obscure family
of Corsica. John Jacob Astor once sold apples on the
streets of New York. Catherine, Empress of Russia,
was a camp-grisette. Cincinnatus was plowing in his
vineyard when the dictatorship of Rome was offered
him. Elihu Burritt was a blacksmith. Daniel Web-
ster, while young, worked on a farm. Henry Clay was
"the mill-boy of the Slashes."

The young man who thinks of taking a short cut to
fortune, should deliberately write down the names of a
dozen of our richest men, and he will find that the
largest part of the wealth of the Astors and Browns
and Stewarts and Vanderbilts was accumulated after
they had passed their fiftieth year.

"Without fame or fortune at forty, without fame or
fortune always," is the sentiment of many, oftener
expressed by the saying, that if a man is not rich at
forty, he never will be. It was after forty that Sir
Walter Scott became the great unknown ; it was after
forty that Palmerston was found to be England's great-
est prime minister of the century. At that age, many
who now appear prominently in our political history
were obscure citizens. Howe, of the sewing-machine,
was utterly destitute at thirty-five, a millionaire six
years later.

A long time ago, a little boy, twelve years old, on

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POOR BOYS.

his road to Vermont, stopped at a country tavern, and
paid for his lodging and breakfast by sawing wood,
instead of asking for it as a gift. Fifty years later,
the same boy passed that same little inn as George
Peabody, the banker, whose name is the synonym of
magnificent charities — the honored of two hemispheres.
He was born poor in Danvers, Massachusetts, and bv
beginning right and pursuing a course of strict honesty,
integrity, industry, activity and Christian benevolence,
he has been able to amass great wealth. Some years
since he made a generous gift to his native town; and
also remembered the city of Baltimore, Maryland, where
he long resided, by a liberal donation. For nearly
twenty-five years, having done business in London, and
being past sixty years old, he had given £150,000 —
nearly $750,000 — to be devoted to the benefit of the
poor of that city.

When Cornelius Vanderbilt was a young man, his
mother gave him fifty dollars of her savings to buy a
small sail-boat, and he engaged in the business of trans-
porting market-gardening from Staten Island to New
York city. When the wind was not favorable he would
work his way over the shoals by pushing the boat along
by poles, putting his own shoulder to the pole, and was
very sure to get his freight in market in season. This
energy gave him always a command of full freights,
and he accumulated money. After awhile he began to
build and run steamboats, and he is now reputed to be
worth more than nineteen millions of dollars, after
making the government a present, as a free gift, of a
steamship that cost $8oo3ooo.

roon boys.

123

Mr. Tobin, the President of the Hudson River Rail-
road Company, is a millionaire. He is not yet forty
years of age. He began life as a steamboat clerk with
Commodore Vanderbilt. When he took his position
the Commodore gave him two orders: first, to collect
fare of everybody and have no dead-heads on the boat;
second, to start the boat on time, and wait for nobody.
The Commodore then lived at Staten Island. Tobin
obeyed his orders so literally that he collected fare of
the Commodore on the first evening, and left him on
the wharf the next morning, as the boat could not
wait. The Commodore was coming down the wharf
leisurely, and supposed, of course, the boat would wait
for him. He proved a *man after Vanderbilt's own
heart. He became his confidential clerk and broker,
bought and sold Harlem and made for himself a fortune.

Stephen Girard left his native country at the age of
ten or twelve years, as a cabin boy on a vessel. He
came to New York in that capacity. His deportment
was distinguished by such fidelity, industry and tem-
perance, that he won the attachment and confidence of
his master, who generally bestowed on him the appel-
lation of "my Stephen.'7 When his master gave up
business he promoted Girard to the command of a
small vessel. Girard was a self-taught man, and the
world was his school. It was a favorite theme with
him, when he afterwards grew rich, to relate that he
commenced life with a sixpence, and to insist that a
man's best capital was his industry. All professions
and all occupations, which afforded a just reward for

124

POOR BOYS.

labor, were alike honorable in his estimation. He was
never too proud to work.

In the time of the fever, in 1793, when consternation
had seized the whole population of the city of Philadel-
phia, Stephen Girard, then a rich merchant, offered his
services as a nurse in the hospital. His offers were
accepted, and in the performance of the most loath-
some duties, he walked unharmed in the midst of the
pestilence. He used to say to his friends, " When you
are sick, if anything ails you, do not go to a doctor,
but come to me, I will cure you."

Far back in the teens of the present century, a young
man asked for employment in the Springfield armory;
but he was poor and modest,* and had no friends, so he
went away without it; but, feeling the man within him,
he sought work until he found it. An age later, he
visited that armory a second time, not as a common
day-laborer, but as the ablest Speaker of the House of
Representatives, and for many years Governor of
Massachusetts.

Of P. R. Spencer, the author of the Spencerian sys-
tem of penmanship, it is said that, " the smooth sand
beach of Lake Erie constituted the foolscap in and on
which, for want of other material, he perfected essen-
tially the system which meets such general favor in our
common and commercial schools, and in our business
and literary circles." When we reflect upon the im-
mense popularity of his system, which, passing beyond
the limits of our own country, has been re-engraved in
England, is used in the model counting-rooms of Lon-

POOR BOYS.

125

don, Liverpool and Manchester, and is also the adopted
system of the English Department of the University of
Zurich, in Switzerland, we must accord to its honored
author chaste and elevated powers of conception, with
bold and tireless grasp, of just apprehension, and agree
that the barefooted boy of fifty years ago must have
been thinking, and thinking aright, and thinking with
no ordinary mind, when he gave to his coinings in the
sands such vitality of science, that the world has
adopted and embalmed them as the most beautiful
imagery of " the art."

Masons and bricklayers can boast of Ben Jonson,
who worked at the building of Lincoln's Inn with a
trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket ; Edw^ards
and Telford, the engineers; Hugh Miller, the geologist,
and Allen Cunningham, the writer and sculptor. John
Hunter, the physiologist, Ronevey and Opie, the paint-
ers, Professor Lee, the orientalist, and John Gibbons,
the sculptor, were carpenters. Wilson, the ornitholo-
gist. Dr. Livingstone, the missionary traveler, and
Tannahill, the poet, were weavers. Samuel Drew, the
essayist, and Gifford, the editor of the " Quarterly
Review," were shoemakers. Admiral Hobson, one of
the gallantest of British seaman, was originally a tailor.

It is not good for human nature to have the road of
life made too easy. Better to be under the necessity
of working hard and faring meanly, than to have every-
thing done ready to our hand, and a pillow of down to
repose upon. Indeed, to start in life with comparatively
small means seems so necessary as a stimulus to work,
that it may almost be set down as one of the essential

126

OCCUPATION.

conditions to success in life. Hence, an eminent judge,
when asked what contributed most to success at the
bar, replied, " Some succeed by great talent, some by
high connections, some by miracle, but the majority by
commencing without a shilling." So it is a common
saying that the men who are most successful in business
are those who begin the world in their shirt-sleeves;
whereas those who begin with fortunes generally lose
them. Necessity is always the first stimulus to industry,
and those who conduct it with prudence, perseverance
and energy will rarely fail. Viewed in this light, the
necessity of labor is not a chastisement, but a blessing —
the very root and spring of all that we call progress in
individuals, and civilization in nations. It may, indeed,
be questioned whether a heavier curse could be imposed
on man than the complete gratification of all his wishes
without effort on his part, leaving nothing for his hopes,
desires or struggles. The feeling that life is destitute
of any jnotive or necessity for action, must be, of all
others, the most distressing and the most insupportable
to a rational being.

The man who has no occupation is in a bad plight.
If he is poor, want is ever and anon, pinching him; if
he is rich, ennui is a more relentless tormentor than
want. An unoccupied man cannot be happy — nor can

OCCUPATION.

127

one who is improperly occupied. We have swarms of
idlers among us, the worst of whom are gentlemen
idlers; that is, men who pursue no useful occupation,
and sponge their way, often enjoying the luxuries of
life, living upon the «hard earnings of others — the can-
cers of community — pseudo patterns of bipeds — leeches
on the body politic.

In this widespread and expanding country, no one
need be without some useful occupation. All trade?
and professions are open, from the honest hod carrier,
up to the highest place in the agricultural, commercial
and mechanical departments, and from the humblest,
but not least useful teacher of A. B. C, up to the
pinnacle of professional fame. Those occupations that
require manual labor, are the surest, most healthy, and
most independent.

A man or woman with no business, nothing to do, is
an absolute pest to society. They are thieves, stealing
that which is not theirs; beggars, eating that which
they have not earned; drones, wasting the fruits of
others' industry; leeches, sucking the blood of others;
evil-doers, setting an example of idleness and dishonest
living; hypocrites, shining in stolen and false colors;
vampires, eating out the life of the community. Frown
upon them, O youth. Learn in your heart to despise
their course of life.

Many of our most interesting youth waste a great
portion of their early life in fruitless endeavors at noth-
ing. They have no trade, no profession, no object
before them, nothing to do ; and yet have a great desire
to do something, and something worthy of themselves.

»

us

OCCUPATION.

They try this and liiat, and the other; offer themselves
to do anything and everything, and yet know how to
do nothing. Educate themselves, they cannot, for they
know not what they should do it for. They waste
their time, energies, and little earnings in endless
changes and wanderings. They have not the stimulus
of a fixed object to fasten their attention and awaken
their energies; not a known prize to win. They wish
for good things, but have no way to attain them ; desire
to be useful, but little means for being so. They lay
plans, invent schemes, form theories, build castles, but
never stop to execute and realize them. Poor creatures !
All that ails them is the want of an object — a single
object. They look at a hundred, and see nothing. If
they should look steadily at one, they would see it dis-
tinctly. They grasp at random at a hundred things
and catch nothing. It is like shooting among a scat-
tered flock of pigeons. The chances are doubtful.
This will never do — no, never. Success, respectability,
and happiness are found in a permanent business. An
early choice of some business, devotion to it, and prepa-
ration for it, should be made by every youth.

When the two objects, business and character, as the
great end of life, are fairly before a youth, what then?
Why, he must attain those objects. Will wishes and
prayers bring them into his hands ? By no means. He
must work as well as wish, labor as well as pray. His
hand must be as stout as his heart, his arm as strong as
his head. Purpose must be followed by action. The
choosing of an occupation, however, is not a small
thing; great mistakes are made and often the most

*

OCCUPATION.

worthy pursuits are left. The young man who leaves
the farm-field for the merchant's desk, or the lawyer's
or doctor's office, thinking to dignify or ennoble his toil,
makes a sad mistake. He passes by that step from
independence to vassalage. Fie barters a natural for
an artificial pursuit; and he must be the slave of the
caprice of customers, and the chicane of trade, either
to support himself or to acquire a fortune. The more
artificial a man's pursuit, the more debasing is it,
morally and physically. To test it, contrast the mer-
chant's clerk with the plow-bpy. The former may have
the most exterior polish, but the latter, under his rough
outside, possesses the true stamina. He is the freer,
franker, happier, and nobler man. Would that young
men might judge of the dignity of labor by its useful-
ness, rather than by the superficial glosses it wears.
Therefore, we never see a man's nobility in his kid
gloves and toilet adornments, but in that sinewy arm,
whose outlines, browned by the sun, betoken a hardy,
honest toil, under whose farmer's or mechanic's vest a
kingliest heart may beat.

Above all, the notion that the " three black graces,"
Law, Medicine and Ministry, must be worshiped by
the candidate for respectability and honor, has done
incalculable damage to society. It has spoiled many a
good carpenter, done injustice to the sledge and the
anvil, cheated the goose and the shears out of their
rights, and committed fraud on the corn and the potato
field. Thousands have died of broken hearts in these
professions — thousands who might have been happy at
the plow, or opulent behind the counter; thousands,
9

130

OCCUPATION.

dispirited and hopeless, look upon the healthful and
independent calling of the farmer with envy and
chagrin; and thousands more, by a worse fate still, are
reduced to necessities which degrade them in their own
estimation, rendering the most brilliant success, but a
wretched compensation for the humiliation with which
it is accompanied, and compelling them to grind out of
the miseries of their fellow men the livelihood which is
denied to their legitimate exertions. The result of all
this is, that the world is full of men who, disgusted
with their vocations, getting their living by their weak-
ness instead of by their strength, are doomed to hope-
less inferiority. "If you choose to represent the various
parts in life," says Sydney Smith, aby holes in a table
of different shapes — some circular, some triangular,
some square, some oblong — and the persons acting
these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall
generally find that the triangular person has got into
the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, while
the square person has squeezed himself into the round
hole.'" A French writer on agriculture observes that
it is impossible profitably to improve land by trying
forcibly to change its natural character — as by bringing
sand to clay, or clay to sand. The only true method
is to adapt the cultivation to the nature of the soil. So
with the moral or intellectual qualities. Exhortation,
self-determination may do much to stimulate and prick
a man on in a wrong career against his natural bent;
but, when the crisis comes, this artificial character thus
laboriously induced will break down, Tailing at the very
time when it is most wanted.

OCCUPATION.

131

No need of spurs to the little Handel or the boy
Bach to study music, when one steals midnight inter-
views with a smuggled clavichord in a secret attic, and
the other copies whole books of studies by moonlight,
for want of a candle, churlishly denied. No need of
whips to the boy-painter, West, when he begins in a
garret, and plunders the family cat for bristles to make
his brushes. On the other hand, to spend years at col-
lege, at the work-bench, or in a store, and then find that
the calling is a wrong one, is disheartening to all but
men of the toughest fibre. The discovery shipwrecks
the feeble, and plunges ordinary minds into despair.
Doubly trying is this discovery when one feels that the
mistake was made in defiance of friendly advice, or to
gratify a freak of fancy or an idle whim. The sorrows
that come upon us by the will of God, or through the
mistakes of our parents, we can submit to with com-
parative resignation; but the sorrows which we have
wrought by our own hand, the pitfalls into which we
have fallen by obstinately going on our own way, these
are the sore places of memory which no tim and no
patience can salve over.

Be what nature intended you for, and you will suc-
ceed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand
times worse than nothing.

It is an uncontro verted truth, that no man ever made
an ill-figure who understood his own talents, nor a good
one who mistook them. Let no young man of industry
and perfect honesty despair because his profession or
calling is crowded. Let him always remember that
there is room enough at the top, and that the question

132

EMPLOYMENT.

whether he is ever to reach the top, or rise above the
crowd at the base of the pyramid, will be decided by
the way in which he improves the first ten years of his
active life in securing to himself a thorough knowledge
of his profession, and a sound moral and intellectual
culture.

I take it that men and women were made for busi-
ness, for activity, for employment. Activity is the life
of us all. To do and to bear is the duty of life. We
know that employment makes the man in a very great
measure. A man with no employment, nothing to do,
is scarcely a man. The secret of making men is to
put them to work, and keep them at it. It is not study,
not instruction, not careful moral training, not good
parents, not good society that makes men. These are
means; but back of these lies the grand molding influ-
uence of men's life. It is employment. A man's busi-
ness does more to make him than every thing else. It
hardens his muscles, strengthens his body, quickens his
blood, sharpens his mind, corrects his judgment, wakes
up his inventive genius, puts his wits to work, starts
him on the race of life, arouses his ambition, makes him
feel that he is a man and must fill a man's shoes, do a
man's work, bear a man's part in life, and show himself
a man in that part. No man feels himself a man who

EMPLOYMENT.

133

is not doing a man's business. A man without emplo}^-
ment is not a man. He does not prove by his works
that he is a man. He cannot act a man's part. A
hundred and fifty pounds of bone and muscle is not a
man. A good cranium full of brains is not a man.
The bone and muscle and brain must know how to act
a man's part, do a man's work, think a man's thoughts,
mark out a man's path, and bear a man's weight of
character and duty before they constitute a man. A
man is body and soul in action. A- statue, if well
dressed, may appear to be a man; so may a human
being. But to be a man, and appear to be, are two
very different things. Human beings grovj, men are
made. The being that grows to the stature of a man
is not a man till he is made one. The grand instru-
mentality of man-making is employment. The world
has long since learned that men cannot be made with-
out employment. Hence it sets its boys to work; gives
them trades, callings, professions; puts the instruments
of man-making into their hands and tells them to work
out their manhood. And the most of them do it some-
how, not always very well. The men who fail to make
themselves a respectable manhood are the bo}'s who are
put to no business, the young men who have nothing to
do; the male beings that have no employment. We
have them about us; walking nuisances; pestilential
gas-bags ; fetid air-bubbles, who burst and are gone.
Our men of wealth and character, of worth and power,
have been early bound to some useful employment.
Many of them were unfortunate orphan boys, whom
want compelled to work for bread — the children of

134

TliUE GREATNESS.

penury and lowly birth. In their early boyhood they
buckled on the armor of labor, took upon their little
shoulders heavy burdens, assumed responsibilities, met
fierce circumstances, contended with sharp opposition,,
chose the ruggedest paths of employment because they
yielded the best remuneration, and braved the storms
of toil till they won great victories for themselves and
stood before the world in the beauty and majesty of
noble manhood. This is the way men are made.
There is no other way. Their powers are developed
in the field of employment.

Men are not born; they are made. Genius, worth,,
power of mind are more made than born. Genius born
may grovel in the dust; genius made will mount to the
skies. Our great and good men that stand along the
paths of history bright and shining lights are witnesses
of these truths. They stand there as everlasting pleaders
for employment.

The forbearing use of power is a sure attribute of
true greatness. Indeed, we may say that power, phy-
sical, moral, purely social or political, is one of the
touchstones of genuine greatness.

The power which the husband has over his wife, in
which we must include the impunity with which he
may be unkind to her; the father over his children; the

TRUE GREATNESS.

old over the young, and the young over the aged;
the strong over the weak; the officer over his men; the
master over his hands; the magistrate over the citizens;
the employer over the employed ; the rich over the
poor ; the educated over the unlettered ; the experienced
over the confiding. The forbearing and inoffensive use
of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence
from it, where the case admits it, will show the true
greatness in a plain light.

u You are a plebian," said a patrician to Cicero. " I
am a plebian," said the eloquent Roman; " the nobility
of my family begins with me; that of yours will end
with you. I hold no man deserves to be crowned with
honor whose life is a failure; and he who lives only to
eat and drink and accumulate money, is a failure. The
world is no better for his living in it. He never wiped
a tear from a sad face — never kindled a fire upon a
frozen hearth. I repeat with emphasis, he is a failure.
There is no flesh in his heart; he worships no God but
gold." These were the words of a heathen.

Man is to be rated, not by his hoards of gold, not by
the simple or temporary influence he may for a time
exert; but by his unexceptionable principles relative
both to character and religion. Strike out these, and
what is he? A brute without a virtue — a savage with-
out a sympathy ! Take them away and his manshtp is
gone; he no longer lives in the image of his Maker!
A cloud of sin hangs darkly on his brow; there is ever
a tempest on his countenance, the lightning in his
glance, the thunder in words, and the rain and whirl-
wind in the breathing of his angry soul. No smile

136

TRUE GREATNESS.

gladdens his lip to tell that love is playing there; no
sympathizing glow illuminates his cheek. Every word
burns with malice, and that voice — the mystic gift of
heaven — grates as harshly on the timid ear as rush-
ing thunders beating amid falling cliffs and tumbling
cataracts.

That which especially distinguishes a high order of
man from a low order of man — that which constitutes
human goodness, human greatness, human nobleness —
is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which
men pursue their own advantage ; but it is self-forget-
fulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of per-
sonal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage,
remote or present, because some other line of conduct
is more right.

The truest greatness is that which is unseen, unknown.
Public martyrdom of every shade has a certain eclat
and popularity connected with it that will often bear
men up to endure with courage its trials; but those
who suffer alone, without sympathy, for truth or prin-
ciple, those who, unnoticed by men, maintain their post,
and in obscurity, and amid discouragement, patiently
fulfill their trust, these are the real heroes of the age,
and the suffering they bear is true greatness.

Let man go abroad with just principles, and what is
he ? An exhaustless fountain in a vast desert ; a glorious
sun shining ever, dispelling every vestige of darkness.
There is love animating his heart, sympathy breathing
in every tone. Tears of pity — dew drops of the soul —
gather in his eye and gush impetuously down his cheek.
A good man is abroad and the world knows and feels

IDLENESS.

137

it. Beneath his smiles lurks no degrading passions.
Within his heart there slumbers no guile. He is not
exalted in moral pride, not elevated in his own views;
but honest, moral and virtuous before the world. He
stands throned on truth; his fortress is wisdom and his
dominion is the vast and limitless world. Always
upright, kind, and sympathizing; always attached to
just principles and actuated by the same, governed by
the highest motives in doing good.

Many moralists have remarked that pride has, or
all human vices, the widest dominion, appears in the
greatest multiplicity of forms, and lies hid under the
greatest variety of disguises — of which disguises, like
the moon's veils of brightness, are both its luster and
its shade, and betray it to others though they hide it
from themselves.

It is not my intention to degrade pride from its pre-
eminence, yet I know not whether idleness may not
maintain a very doubtful and obstinate position. Idle-
ness predominates in many lives where it is not sus-
pected, for, being a vice which terminates in itself, it
may be enjoyed without injury to others, and therefore
is not watched like fraud, which endangers property,
or like pride, which naturally seeks its gratification in
other's inferiority.

138

IDLENESS.

Idleness is a silent and peaceful quality that neither
raises envy by ostentation nor hatred by opposition.
There are some that profess idleness in its full dignity;
they boast because they do nothing, and thank their
stars that they have nothing to do — who sleep every
night until they cannot sleep any longer, and then rise
only that exercise may enable them to sleep again;
who prolong the reign of darkness by double curtains,
and never see the sun but to tell him how they hate
his beams; whose whole labor is to vary the posture
of indulgence, and whose day differs from their night
but as a couch or a chair differs from a bed. These
are the true and open votaries of idleness, who exist
in a state of unruffled stupefied laziness, forgetting
and forgotten, who have long ceased to live, and at
whose death the survivors can only say that they
have ceased to breathe. Such a person is an annoy-
ance— he is of no use to anybody — he is an intruder
in the busy thoroughfare of every-day life — he is of
no advantage; he annoys busy men — he makes them
unhappy; he may have an income to support his idle-
ness, or he may sponge on his good-natured friends,
but in either case he is despised; he is a criminal prod-
igal, and a prolific author of want and shame; he is a
confused work-shop for the devil to tinker in, and no
good can ever be expected from him; in short, he is a
nuisance in the world, and needs abatement for the
public good. Idleness is the bane of body and mind,
the nurse of naughtiness, the chief author of all mis-
chief, one of seven deadly sins — the cushion upon
which the devil reposes, and a great cause not only of

/

IDLENESS. 139

melancholy but of many other diseases, for the mind
is naturally active, and if it be not occupied about
some honest business, it rushes into mischief or sinks
into melancholy. Of all contemptible things, there is
nothing half so wretched as a lazy man. The Turks
say the devil tempts everybody, but the idle man
tempts the devil. When we notice that a man can be
a professional loafer, a successful idler, with less capital,
less brains, than are required to succeed in any other
profession, we cannot blame him so much after all, for
those are things that the idler is generally destitute of;
and we can notice it as an actual fact, that they suc-
ceed in their business, and it costs them no energy, no
brains, no character, no nothing. They are dead beats ;
they should not be classed among the living — they are
a sort of dead men that cannot be buried.

Idleness is an ingredient in the upper current, which
was scarcely known, and never countenanced, in the
good old linsey woolsey, tow and linen, mush and milk,
pork and potato times of the pilgrim fathers, and
revolutionary patriots. We now have those among
us, who would rather go hungry and be clad in rags^
than to work. We also have a numerous train of
gentlemen idlers, who pass down the stream of life
at the expense of their fellow passengers. They live
well, and dress well, as long as possible, by borrowing
and sponging, and then take to gambling, swindling,
stealing, robbing; and often pass on for years, before
justice overtakes them. So long as these persons can
keep up fashionable appearances, and elude the police,,
they are received into the company of the upper ten

140

IDLENESS.

thousand. Many an idle knave, by means of a fine
coat, a lily hand, and a graceful bow, has been received
into the polite circles of society with eclat, and walked,
rough-shod, over a worthy young mechanic or farmer,
who had too much good sense to make a dash, or imi-
tate the monkey shines of an itinerant dandy. A fine
dress, in the eyes of some, covers more sins than
charity.

If thus the young man wishes to be nobody, his way
is easy. He need only go to the drinking saloon to
spend his leisure time; he need not drink much at
first, only a little beer, or some other drink; in the
meantime play dominoes, checkers, or something else,
to kill time, so that he is sure not to read any useful
books. If he reads at all, let it be some of the dime
novels of the day. Thus go on, keep his stomach full
and his head empty, and he will soon graduate a
nobody, unless (as it is quite likely) he should turn
out a drunkard or a professional gambler, which is
worse than a nobody.

Young man, if you do not wish to be a nobody, 01
somebody much worse than nobody, then guard yom
youth. A lazy youth will be a lazy man, just as sure
as a crooked sapling makes a crooked tree. Who ever
saw a youth grow up in idleness that did not make a
lazy, shiftless vagabond when he was old enough to be
a man, though he was not a man by character. The
great mass of thieves, paupers and criminals have
come to what they are by being brought up to do
nothing useful. Laziness grows on people; it begins
in cob- web and ends in iron chains. If you will be

IDLENESS.

141

nothing, just wait to be somebody. That man that
waits for an opportunity to do much at once, may
breathe out his life in idle wishes, and finally regret
his useless intentions and barren zeal — a young man
idle, an old man needy. Idleness travels very leisurely
along, and poverty soon overtakes her — to be idle is
to be poor. It is said that pride and poverty are
inconsistent companions, but when idleness unites them
the depth of wretchedness is complete. Leisure is.
sweet to those who have earned it, but burdensome
to those who get it for nothing.

Arouse yourself, }^oung man ! Shake off the wretched
and disgraceful habits of the do-nothing, if you have
been so unfortunate as to incur them, and go to work
at once! "But what shall I do?" you perhaps ask.
Anything, rather than continue in dependent, and
enfeebling, and demoralizing idleness. If you can get
nothing else to do, sweep the streets. But you are
"ashamed" to do that. If so, your shame has been
very slow in manifesting itself, seeing how long you
have been acting, on life's great stage, the despicable
parts of drone and loafer, without shame!

Idler! Take the foregoing home to yourself. Don't
try to persuade yourself that the cap does n't fit you.
Honestly acknowledge its fitness. It will be a great
point gained, to become honest with yourself. It will
be a step forward — a step toward that justice to
others which your present conduct absolutely ignores!

142

EDUCATION.

Manufacturers find intelligent educated mechanics
more profitable to employ, even at higher wages, than
those who are uneducated. We have never met any
one who had much experience in employing large num-
bers of men who did not hold this opinion, and, as a
general rule, those manufacturers are most successful
who are most careful to secure intelligent and skillful
workmen.

It requires extensive observation to enable one even
partially to appreciate the wonderful extent to which all
the faculties are developed by mental cultivation. The
nervous system grows more vigorous and active, the
touch is more sensitive, and there is greater mobility in
the hand.

We once knew a weaving room filled with girls
above the average in character and intelligence, and
there was one girl among them who had been highly
educated. Though length of arms and strength of
muscle are advantages in weaving, and though this girl
was short and small, she always wove the greatest
number of pieces in the room, and consequently drew
the largest pay at the end of every month. We might
fill many pages with similar cases which have come
under our own observation, but there is no occasion.
It has long since been settled by the general observa-
tion of manufacturers, that intelligent workmen will do
more and better work than ignorant ones.

But the excess in the amount of work performed is

EDUCATION.

143

not the most important respect in which an intelligent
workman is superior to a stupid one. He is far more
likely to be faithful to the interests of his employer, to
save from waste and to turn to profit every thing that
comes to his hand. There is also the exalted satisfac-
tion of being surrounded by thinking, active and inquir-
ing minds, instead of by ignorance.

Such are some of the advantages to the " Captains
of Industry," which result from the employment of
intelligent workmen; not in one article, nor any number
of articles, could these advantages be fully set forth.
And if it is impossible to state the advantages to the
emplo}Ter, how vain must be the effort to describe those
which result to the workman himself!

The increase of wages is the least and lowest
of the rich rewards of mental culture. The whole
being is enlarged and exalted; the scope of view is
widened; the objects of interest are increased; the
subjects of thought are multiplied; life is more filled
with emotion; and the man is raised in the scale of
creation.

To intelligent English travelers, nothing in the United
States has excited such wonder and admiration as
Lowell, Nashua, Manchester, Lawrence, and the other
manufacturing towns of New England. That factory-
girls should play on the piano, and sustain a creditable
magazine by their own contributions; that their resi-
dences should be clean, commodious, and elegant; that
factory-men should be intelligent gentlemen, well-read
in literature, and totally unacquainted with beer and its
inspiration's, have been, for many years, the crowning

144

EDUCATION.

marvels of America to all travelers of right feeling and
good judgment.

Daniel Webster says: "Knowledge does not com-
prise all which is contained in the large term of educa-
tion. The feelings are to be disciplined, the passions
are to be restrained; true and worthy motives are to-
be inspired; a profound religious feeling is to be in-
stilled, and pure morality inculcated under all circum-
stances. All this is comprised in education."

Too many have imbibed the idea that to obtain a
sufficient education to enable a man to appear advan-
tageously upon the theatre, especially of public life; his
boyhood and youth must be spent within the walls of
some classical seminary of learning, that he may com-
mence his career under the high floating banner of a
collegiate diploma — with them, the first round in the
ladder of fame.

That a refined classical education is desirable, and
one of the accomplishments of a man, I admit — that it
is indispensably necessary, and always makes a man
more useful, I deny. Fie who has been incarcerated,
from his childhood, up to his majority, within the
limited circumference of his school and boarding room,
although he may have mastered all the classics, is
destitute of that knowledge of men and things, indis-
pensably necessary to prepare him for action, either in
private or public life. Classic lore and polite literature
are very different from that vast amount of common
intelligence, fit for every day use, that he must have, to
render his intercourse with society pleasing to himself,
or agreeable to others. He is liable to imposition at

EDUCATION.

145

every turn he makes. He may have a large fund of
fine sense, but if he lacks common sense, he is like a
ship without a rudder. Let boys and girls be taught,
first and last, all that is necessary to prepare them for
the common duties of life — if the classics and polite
literature can be worked between the coarser branches,
they will be much safer — as silk goods are, enclosed in
canvas, or a bale. I wish not to undervalue high sem-
inaries of learning — but rather to stimulate those to
persevere in the acquirement of science, who are de-
prived of the advantage of their dazzling lights. Frank-
lin, Sherman, and others, emerged from the work shop,
and illuminated the world as brightly, as the most pro-
found scholar from a college. In this enlightened age,
and in our free country, all who will, may drink,
deeply, at the pure fountain of science. Ignorance is a
voluntary misfortune. By a proper improvement of
time, the apprentice of the mechanic may lay in a
stock of useful knowledge, that will enable him, when
he arrives at manhood, to take a respectable stand by
the side of those who have grown up in the full blaze
of a collegiate education — and with a better prospect
of success at the start, because he is much better
stocked with common information, without which a
man is a poor helpless animal.

Education of every kind has two values — value as
knowledge and value as discipline. Besides its use for
guidance in conduct, the acquisition of each order of
facts has also its use as mental exercise; and its effects
as a preparative for complete living have to be consid-
ered under both these heads.
10

146

EDUCATION.

Education cannot be acquired without pains and
application. It is troublesome and deep digging for
pure water, but when once you come to the springs,
they rise up and meet you. Every grain helps fill the
bushel, so does the improvement of every moment
increase knowledge.

Says Swedenborg: "It is of no advantage to man
to know much, unless he lives according to what he
knows, for knowledge has no other end than goodness;
and he who is made good is in possession of a far
richer treasure than he whose knowledge is the most
extensive, and yet is destitute of goodness; for, what
the latter is seeking by his great acquirements, the
former already possesses."

One of the most agreeable consequences of knowl-
edge is the respect and importance which it com-
municates to old age. Men rise in character often as
they increase in years; they are venerable from what
they have acquired and pleasing from what they can
knpart. Knowledge is the treasure, but judgment the
treasurer of a wise man. Superficial knowledge, pleas-
ure dearly purchased, and subsistence at the will of
another, are the disgrace of mankind.

The chief properties of wisdom are to be mindful of
things past, careful for things present, and provident for
things to come.

He that thinks himself the happiest man is really so;
but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the
greatest fool.

A wise man, says Seneca, is provided for occurrences
of any kind: the good he manages, the bad he van-

EDUCATION.

147

-quishes; in prosperity he betrays no presumption, and
in adversity he feels no despondency.

By gaining a good education you shall have your
reward in the rich stores of knowledge you have thus
collected, and which shall ever be at your command.
More valuable than earthly treasure — while fleets may
sink, and storehouses consume, and banks may totter,
and riches flee, the intellectual investments you have
thus made will be permanent and enduring, unfailing as
the constant flow of Niagara or Amazon — a bank
whose dividends are perpetual, whose wealth is undi-
minished however frequent the drafts upon it; which,
though moth may impair, yet thieves cannot break
through nor steal.

Nor will you be able to fill these storehouses to their
full. Pour into a glass a stream of water, and at last
it fills to the brim and will not hold another drop. But
you may pour into your mind, through a whole lifetime,
•streams of knowledge from every conceivable quarter,
and not only shall it never be full, but it will constantly
thirst for more, and welcome each fresh supply with a
greater joy.

Nay, more, to all around you may impart of these
gladdening streams which have so fertilized your own
mind, and yet, like the candle from which a thousand
other candles may be lit without diminishing its flame,
3'our supply shall not be impaired. On the contrary,
your knowledge, as you add to it, will itself attract still
. more as it widens your realm of thought; and thus will
you realize in your own life the parable of the ten
talents, for "to him that hath shall be given."

148

OPPORTUNITY.

The beginning of wisdom is to fear God, but the end
of it is to love him. The highest learning is to be
wise; and the greatest wisdom is to be good. The
wise man looks forward into futurity, and considers
what will be his condition millions of ages hence, as
well as what it is at present.

Many do with opportunity as children do at the sea-
shore; they fill their little hands with sand, then let
the grains fall through one b}^ one, till they are all gone.

Four things come not back; the spoken word; the
sped arrow; the past life; and the neglected oppor'
tunity. Opportunity has hair in front, behind she is
bald; if you seize her by the forelock you may hold
her, but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can
catch her again. Opportunities are the offers of God.
Heaven gives us enough when it gives us opportunity.
Great opportunities are generally the result of the wise
improvement of small ones. Wise men make more
opportunities than they find. If you think your oppor-
tunities are not good enough, you had better improve
them. Remember you are responsible for talents, for
time, and for opportunities; improve them as one that
must give an account. Make hay while the sun shines.
Gather roses while they bloom.

As a general rule, those who have no opportunities

OPPORTUNITY. 14Q

despise small ones; and those who despise small oppor-
tunities never get large ones.

Opportunity does not only do great work, but if not
heeded is often most disastrous.

A shipmaster once said, "It was my lot to fall in
with the ill-fated steamer, the 'Central America.' The
night was closing in, the sea rolling high; but I hailed
the crippled steamer, and asked if they needed help.
'I am in a sinking condition,' cried Captain Herndon,
^Had you not better send your passengers on board
directly?' I said. 'Will you not lay by me till morn-
ing?' answered Captain Herndon. 'I will try,1 I
replied; 'but had you not better send your passengers
on board now?' ' Lay by me till morning,' again said
•Captain Herndon. I tried to lay by him; but at night
such was the heavy roll of the sea I could not keep my
position, and I never saw the steamer again. In an
hour and a half after the captain said ' Lay by me till
morning,' the vessel, with its living freight, went down
— the captain and crew, and a great majority of pas-
.sengers, found a grave in the deep." There is so little
time for over-squeamishness at present the opportunity
slips away; the very period of life at which a man
chooses to venture, if ever, is so confined that it is no
bad rule to preach up the necessity, in such instances,
of a little violence done to the feelings, and of efforts
made in defiance of strict and sober calculation and not
pass one opportunity after another.

What may be done at anytime, will be done at no
time. Take time while time is, for time will away, say
the English. When the fool has made up his mind, the

150

SPARE MOMENTS.

market has gone by; Spanish. A little too late, much
too late; Dutch. Some refuse roast meat, and after-
wards long for the smoke of it; Italian.

There is sometimes wanting only a stroke of fortune ta
discover numberless latent good or bad qualities, which
would otherwise have been eternally concealed; as
words written with a certain liquor appear only when
applied to the fire.

Accident does very little toward the production of
any great result in life. Though sometimes what is.
called a " happy hit" may be made by a bold venture,
the old and common highway of steady industry and
application is the only safe road to travel.

It is not accident, that helps a man in the world, but
purpose and persistent industry. These make a man
sharp to discern opportunities, and turn them to account.
To the feeble, the sluggish, and purposeless, the hap-
piest opportunities avail nothing — they pass them by^
seeing no meaning in them.

If we are prompt to seize and improve even the
shortest intervals of possible action and effort, it is
astonishing how much can be accomplished. Watt
taught himself chemistry and mechanics while working
at his trade of a mathematical instrument maker; and
he availed himself of every opportunity to extend his.

SPARE MOMENTS.

151

knowledge of language, literature, and the principles
of science. Stephenson taught himself arithmetic and
mensuration while working as an engineer during the
night shifts, and he studied mechanics during his spare
hours at home, thus preparing himself for the great
work of his life — the invention of the passenger loco-
motive.

With perseverance, the very odds and ends of time
may be worked up into results of the greatest value.
An hour in every day withdrawn from frivolous pur-
suits, would, if profitably employed, enable any man of
ordinary capacity, very shortly to master a complete
science. It would make an ignorant man a well-
informed man in ten years. We must not allow the
time to pass without yielding fruits, in the form of
something learned worthy of being known, some good
principle cultivated, or some good habit strengthened.
Dr. Mason Good translated Lucretius while riding in
his carriage in the streets of London, going his rounds
among his patients. Dr. Darwin composed nearly all
his works in the same way, while riding about in his
"sulky," from house to house in the country — writing
down his thoughts on little scraps of paper, which he
carried about with him for the purpose. Hale wrote
his ucor' .mplations" while traveling on a circuit. Dr.
Burney learned French and Italian while traveling on
horseback from one musical pupil to another in the
course of his profession. Kirk White learned Greek
while walking to and from a lawyer's office; and we
personally know a man of eminent position in a northern
manufacturing town, who learned Latin and French.

152 SPARE MOMENTS.

while going messages as an errand boy in the streets of
Manchester.

Elihu Burritt attributed his first success in self-
improvement, not to genius, which he disclaimed, but
simply to the careful employment of those invaluable
fragments of time, called "odd moments." While
working and earning his living as a blacksmith, he
mastered some eighteen ancient and modern languages,
and twenty-two European dialects. Withal, he was
exceedingly modest, and thought his achievements
nothing extraordinary. Like another learned and wise
man, of whom it was said that he could be silent in ten
languages, Elihu Burritt could do the same in forty.
" Those who have been acquainted with my character
from my youth up," said he, writing to a friend, "will
give me credit for sincerity when I say, that it never
entered into my head to blazon forth any acquisition of
my own. * * * All that I have accomplished, or
expect, or hope to accomplish, has been and will be by
that plodding, patient, persevering process of accretion
which builds the ant-heap — particle by particle, thought
by thought, fact by fact. And if ever I was actuated
by ambition, its highest and warmest aspiration reached
no further than the hope to set before the young men
of my country an example in employing those invaluable
fragments of time called 'odd moment s.'"

Daguesseau, one of the great chancellors of France,
by carefully working up his odd bits of time, wrote a
bulky and able volume in the successive intervals of
waiting for dinner; and Madame de Gentis composed
several of her charming volumes while waiting for the

SPARE MOMENTS.

153

princess to whom she gave her daily lessons. Jeremy
Bentham in like manner disposed of his hours of labor
and repose, so that not a moment should be lost, the
arrangement being determined on the principle that it
is a calamity to lose the smallest portion of time. He
lived and worked habitually under the practical con-
sciousness that man's days are numbered, and that the
night cometh when no man can work.

What a solemn and striking admonition to youth is
that inscribed on the dial at All Souls, Oxford, England.
"Periunt et imputantur" the hours perish and are
laid to our charge. For time, like life, can never be
recalled. Melanchton noted down the time lost by him,
that he might thereby reanimate his industry, and not
lose an hour. An Italian scholar put over his door an
inscription intimating that whosoever remained there
should join in his labors. "We are afraid," said some
visitors to Baxter, "that we break in upon your time."
"To be sure you do," replied the disturbed and blunt
divine. Time was the estate out of which these great
workers, and all other workers, carved a rich inherit-
ance of thoughts and deeds for their successors.

Sir Walter Scott found spare moments for self-im-
provement in every pursuit, and turned even accidents
to account. Thus it was in the discharge of his func-
tions as a writer's apprentice that he first penetrated
into the Highlands, and formed those friendships among
the surviving heroes of 1745 which served to lay the
foundation for a large class of his works. Later in life,
when employed as quartermaster of the Edinburgh
Light Cavalry, he was accidentally disabled by the

154

BOOKS.

kick of a horse, and confined for sometime to his house;
but Scott was a sworn enemy to idleness, and he forth-
with set his mind to work, and in three days composed
the first canto of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel, n
his first great original work.

Let not, then, the young man sit with folded hands,,
calling on Hercules. Thine own arm is the demi-god.
It was given thee to help thyself. Go forth into the
world trustful, but fearless. Exalt thine adopted calling
or profession. Look on labor as honorable, and dignify
the task before thee, whether it be in the study, office,
counting-room, work-shop, or furrowed field. There is
an equality in all, and the resolute will and pure heart
may ennoble either.

No man has a right to bring up his children without
surrounding them with books. It is a wrong to his
family. He cheats them. Children learn to read by
being in the presence of books. The love of knowl-
edge comes with reading, and grows upon it. And the
love of knowledge in a young mind is almost a warrant
against the inferior excitement of passions and vices.

A little library, growing larger every year, is an
honorable part of a young man^ history. It is a man's
duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one
of the necessaries of life. It is not like a dead city of

BOOKS.

155

stones, yearly crumbling, and needing repair; but like
a spiritual tree. There it stands and yields its precious
fruit from year to year and from age to age.

Carlyle saw the influence of books many years ago.
"I say, of all the priesthoods, aristocracies — governing
classes at present extant in the world — there is no
class comparable for importance to priesthood of the
writers of books."

The art of writing and of printing, which is a
sequence to it, is really the most wonderful thing in the
world. Books are the soul of actions, the only audible^
articulate voice of the accomplished facts of the past.
The men of antiquity are dead; their fleets and armies
have disappeared; their cities are ruins; their temples
are dust; yet all these exist in magic preservation in
the books they have bequeathed us, and their manners
and their deeds are as familiar to us as the events of
yesterday. And these papers and books, the mass of
printed matter which we call literature, are really the
teacher, guide and law-giver of the world to-day.

The influence of books upon man is remarkable;
they make the man. You may judge a man more
truly by the books and papers which he reads than by
the company which he keeps, for his associates are
often, in a manner, imposed upon him; but his reading
is the result of choice, and the man who chooses a cer-
tain class of books and papers unconsciously becomes
more colored in their views, more rooted in their
opinions, and the mind becomes fettered to their views*

All the life and feeling of a young girl fascinated by
some glowing love romance, is colored and shaped by

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the page she reads. If it is false, and weak, and foolish,
she will be false, and weak, and foolish, too; but if it is
true, and tender, and inspiring, then something of its
truth, and tenderness, and inspiration will grow into her
soul and will become a part of her very self. The boy
who reads .deeds of manliness, of bravery and noble
daring, feels the spirit of emulation grow within him,
and the seed is planted which will bring forth fruit of
heroic endeavor and exalted life.

A good book is the most appropriate gift that friend-
ship can make. It never changes, it never grows un-
fashionable or old. It is soured by no neglect, is jealous
of no rival; but always its clean, clear pages are ready
to amuse, interest and instruct. The voice that speaks
the thought may change or grow still forever, the heart
that prompted the kindly and cheering word may grow
cold and forgetful; but the page that mirrors it is
changeless, faithful, immortal. The book that records
the incarnation of divine love, is God's best gift to man,
and the books which are filled with kindly thought
and generous sympathy, are the best gifts of friend to
friend.

Every family ought to be well supplied with a choice
supply of books for reading. This may be seen from
the consequences of its neglect and abuse on the one
hand, and from its value and importance on the other.
Parents should furnish their children the necessary
means, opportunities and direction of a Christian educa-
tion. Give them proper books. "Without books,"
says the quaint Bartholin, "God is silent, justice dor-
mant, science at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb,

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157

and all things involved in Cimmerian darkness." Bring
them up to the habit of properly reading and studying
these books. "A reading people will soon become a
thinking people, and a thinking people must soon
become a great people." Every book you furnish your
child, and which it reads with reflection is "like a cast
of the weaver's shuttle, adding another thread to the
indestructible web of existence." It will be worth
more to him than all your hoarded gold and silver.

Dear reader, be independent and make up your
mind what it is best for you to read, and read it.
Master a few good books. Life is short, and books
are many. Instead of having your mind a garret
crowded with rubbish, make it a parlor with rich fur-
niture, beautifully arranged, in which you would not be
ashamed to have the whole world enter. "Readers,"
says Addison, "who are in the flower of their youth
should labor at those accomplishments which may set
off their persons when their bloom is gone, and to lay
in timely provisions for manhood and old age." Says
Dr. Watts: "A line of the golden verses of the
Pythagoreans recurring in the memory hath often
tempted youth to frown on temptation to vice." No
less worthy is the following: "There are many silver
books, and a few golden books; but I have one book
worth more than all, called the Bible, and that is a
book of bank notes." The parent who lives for his
children's souls will often consider what other books
are most likely to prepare his little ones for prizing
aright that Book of Books, and make that object the
pole star of his endeavors.

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BOOKS.

Every book has a moral expression, though as in
the human face, it may not be easy to say what it
consists in. We may take up some exquisite poem
or story, with no distinctly religious bearing, and feel
that it is religious, because it strikes a chord so deep
in human nature, that we feel that it is only the divine
nature, "God who encompasses," that can respond to
what it calls forth. When we feel the inspiring influ-
ence of books, when we are lifted on the wings of
ancient genius, we should jealously avoid the perver-
sion of the gift. The children of this world have their
research and accomplishment, and enough is done for
pleasure and fame; but the Christian scholar will
rebuke himself, unless he finds it in his heart to be
more alive in devotion to heavenly things, at the very
moment when he has breathed the aroma of poetry
and eloquence. Some books are to be tasted, others
to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
digested: that is, some books are to be read only in
parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some
few to be read wholly, and with diligence and atten-
tion. Some books also may be read by deputy, and
extracts made of them by others; but that would be
only in the less important arguments, and the meaner
sort of books; else distilled books are, like common
distilled waters, flashy things.

"Not to know what was before you were, is," as
has been truly said, "to be always a child." And it
is equally true that he never becomes a complete man,
who learns nothing of the former days, from reading.
"Books," says a good writer, "are the crystalline

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159

founts, which hold in eternal ice the imperishable gems
of the past."

Good books are invaluable as a moral guard to a
young man. The culture of a taste for such reading,
keeps one quietly at home, and prevents a thirst for
exciting recreations and debasing pleasure. It makes
him scorn whatever is low, coarse, and vulgar. It
prevents that weary and restless temper which drives
so many to the saloon, if not the gambling table, to
while away their leisure hours. Once form the habit
of domestic reading, and you will, at any time, prefer
an interesting book, to frequenting the haunts of vice.

Chief among the educational influences of a house-
hold are its books. Therefore, good sir or madam,
wherever you economize, do not cut off the supply of
good literature. Have the best books, the best papers,
and .the best magazines, though you turn your old
black silk once more, and make the old coat do duty
another season. Nothing will compensate to your
boys and girls for the absence of those quiet, kindly
teachers, who keep such order in their schools,
and whose invaluable friendship never cools or suffers
change. You may go without pies and cake, or with-
out butter on your bread, but, if you care for your
family's best happiness and progress, you will not go
without the best of books, such as Shakspeare and
Irving, Thackeray and Dickens, and of the best authors
of the day.

In books we live continually in the decisive moments
of history, and in the deepest experience of individual
lives. The flowers which we cull painfully and at long

160

BOOKS.

intervals in our personal history, blossom in profusion
here and the air is full of a fragrance which touches
our own life only in the infrequent springs. In our
libraries we meet great men on a familiar footing, and
are at ease with them. We come to know them better,
perhaps, than those who bear their names and sit at
their tables. The reserve that makes so many fine
natures difficult of access is entirely lost. No crude-
ness of manner, no poverty of speech or unfortunate
personal peculiarity, mars the intercourse of author
and reader. It is a relation in which the interchange
of thought is undisturbed by outward conditions. We
lose our narrow selves in the broader life that is opened
to us. We forget the hindrances and limitations of
our own work in the full comprehension of that stronger
life that cannot be bound nor confined, but grows in all
soils and climbs heavenward under every sky. It is
the privilege of greatness to understand life in its height
and depth. Hazlitt has told us of his first interview
with Coleridge, and of the moonlight walk homeward,
when the eloquent lips of the great conversationalist
awoke the slumbering genius within him, and made the
old familiar world strange and wonderful under a sky
that seemed full of new stars. Such intercourse with
gifted men is the privilege of few; but in the seclusion
of the library there often grows up an acquaintance
more thorough and inspiring. Books are rich, not only
in thought and sentiment, but in character. Where
shall we find in any capitals such majesty as "doth
hedge about" the kings of Shakspeare, or such brave
and accomplished gentlemen *as adorn his courts and

BOOKS.

161

measure wit and courtesy with the fair«and graceful
women of his fancy?

The best society in the world is that which lives in
books. No taint of vulgarity attaches to it, no petty
strife for place and power disturbs its harmony, no
falsehood stains its perfect truth; and those who move
habitually in these associations find a strength which is
the more controlling because moulded by genius into
forms of grace and refinement.

There is a certain monotony in daily life, and those
whose aims are high, but who lack the inherent strength
to stand true to them amid adverse influences, gradually
drop out of the ever-thinning ranks of the aspiring.
They are conquered by routine, and disheartened by
the discipline and labor that guard the prizes of life.
Even to the strongest there are hours of weakness and
weariness. To the weak, and to the strong in their
times of weakness, books are inspiring friends and
teachers. Against the feebleness of individual efforts
they proclaim the victory of faith and patience, and
out of the uncertainty and discouragement of one day's
work they prophesy the fuller and richer life, that
grows strong and deep through conflict, sets itself more
and more in harmony with the noblest aims, and is at
last crowned with honor and power.
11

162

BEADING.

There are four classes of readers. The first is like
the hour-glass; and their readings being on the sand, it
runs in and runs out and leaves no vestige behind. A
■second is like a sponge, which imbibes everything, and
returns it in the same state, only a little dirtier. A
third is like a jelly bag, allowing all that is pure to pass
away, and retaining only the refuse and dregs. The
fourth is like the slaves in the diamond mines of Gol-
<:onda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, obtain
only pure gems.

One's reading is, usually, a fair index of his charac-
ter. Observe, in almost any house you visit, the books
which lie customarily on the center-table; or note what
are taken by preference from the public or circulating
library; and you may judge, in no small degree, not
only the intellectual tastes and the general intelligence
of the family, but also — and what is of far deeper
moment — you may pronounce on the moral attain-
ments and the spiritual advancement of most of the
household. aA man is known," it is said, "by the
company he keeps." It is equally true that a man's
character may be, to a great extent, ascertained by
knowing what books he reads.

The temptation to corrupt reading is usually strong
est at the period when the education of the school-
room is about closing. The test of the final utility,
however, is the time when our youth leave these
schools. If the mind be now awakened to a manly

READING.

163

independence, and start on a course of vigorous self-
culture, all will be well. But if, on the other hand, it
sinks into a state of inaction, indifferent to its own
needs, and to all the highest ends and aims of life, then
woe to the man. For few, very few, ever rouse them-
selves in mid-life to a new intellectual taste, and to' an
untried application of their time and powers to that
culture for which the Creator formed and endowed
them.

To read books which present false pictures of human
life is decidedly dangerous, and we would say stand
aloof. Life is neither a tragedy nor a farce. Men are
not all either knaves or heroes. Women are neither
angels nor furies. And yet, if you depended upon
much of the. literature of the day, you would get the
idea that life, instead of being something earnest, some-
thing practical, is a fitful and fantastic and extravagant
thing. How poorly prepared are that young man and
woman for the duties of to-day who spent last night
wading through brilliant passages descriptive of mag-
nificent knavery and wickedness. The man will be
looking all day long for his heroine in the tin shop, by
the forge, in the factory, in the counting-room, and he
will not find her, and he will be dissatisfied. A man
who gives himself up to the indiscriminate reading of
novels will be nerveless, inane, and a nuisance. He
will be fit neither for the store, nor the shop, nor the
field. A woman who gives herself up to the indiscrim-
inate reading of novels will be unfitted for the duties
of wife, mother, sister, daughter. There she is, hair
dishevelled, countenance vacant, cheeks pale, hands

164

READING.

trembling, bursting into tears at midnight over the fate
of some unfortunate lover; in the day-time, when she
ought to be busy, staring by the half hour at nothing;
biting her finger nails to the quick. The carpet that
was plain before, will be plainer, after through a
romance all night long having wandered in tessellated
halls of castles. And your industrious companion will
be more unattractive than ever, now that you have,
walked in the romance through parks with plumed
princesses, or lounged in the arbor with the polished
desperado.

Abstain from all those books which, while they have
some good things about them, have also an admixture
of evil. You have read books that had the two elements
in them — the good and the bad. Which stuck to you?
The bad! The heart of most people is like a sieve,
which lets the small particles of gold fall through, but
keeps the great cinders. Once in a while there is a
mind like a loadstone, which, plunged amid steel and
brass filings, gathers up the steel and repels the brass.
But it is generally just the opposite. If you attempt to
plunge through a hedge of burrs to get one blackberry,
you will get more burrs than blackberries. You cannot
afford to read a bad book, however good you are.
You say, "The influence is insignificant.' ' I tell you
that the scratch of a pin has sometimes produced the
lockjaw. Alas, if through curiosity, as many do, you
pry into an evil book, your curiosity is as dangerous as
that of the man who should take a torch into a gun-
powder mill merely to see whether it really would blow
up or not.

BEADING.

165

Inferior books are to be rejected, in an age and time
when we are courted by whole libraries, and when no
man's life is long enough to compass even those which
are good and great and famous. Why should we bow
down at puddles, when we can approach freely to the
crystal spring-heads of science and letters? Half the
reading of most people is snatched up at random.
Many stupefy themselves over the dullness of authors
who ought never to have escaped oblivion. The inven-
tion of paper and printing — especially the production
of both by a new motive power — may be said to have
overdone the matter, and made it too easy to be born
into the world of authorship. The race would be
benefited by some new invention for strangling nine
out of ten that sue for publicity. No man can do his
friend or child a more real service than to snatch from
his hand the book that relaxes and effeminates him, lest
he destroy the solids and make his fibre flaccid by the
slops and hashes of a catch-penny press. But especially
is he a benefactor who instills the principle that no com-
position should be deliberately sought, which is not
good, beneficial, and above mediocrity.

To those who plead the want of time to read, we
would say, be as frugal of your hours as you are ot .
jour dollars, and you can create time in the busiest day.
Horace Greeley, the editor of a newspaper which has
reached an almost incredible circulation, tells us, that
when a boy, he would "go reading, to the wood-pile;
reading, to the garden; reading, to the neighbors."
His father was poor, and needed his services through
the day; and it was a mighty struggle with him to get

166

READING.

Horace to bed. k'I would take a pine knot," he saysr
"put it on the back-log, pile my books around me, and
lie down and read all through the long winter evenings ;
silent, motionless, and dead to the world around me,
alive only to the world to which I was transported by
my book." In this country talent has a fair field to
rise by culture from the humblest walks of life, and to
attain the highest distinction of which it is capable.
"Why," inquired a bystander of a certain carpenter,
who was bestowing great labor in planing and smooth-
ing a seat for the bench in a court-room, "why do you
spend so much time on that seat?" "I do it," was the
reply, "to make it easy for myself." And he kept his
word; for, by industry, perseverance, and self-educa-
tion, he rose, step by step, until he actually did after-
wards sit as judge on that very bench he had planed as
a carpenter.

Consider that what we carry to a book is always
quite as important as what we receive from it. We
may strike the keys of the best instrument, from ear-
liest morn to latest night, but unless there be music ia
our soul, it can produce no harmony for us. While, to*
an earnest, inquiring, self-poised mind, "a good book is
• the plectrum by which our else silent lyres are struck."
Master your reading, and let it never master you.
Then it will serve you with an ever-increasing fidelity.
Only read books aright, and they will charge your
mind with the true electric fire. Take them up as
among your best friends; and every volume you peruse
will join the great company of joyous servitors who-
will wait around your immortal intellect. Then, too,,

READING.

167

your daily character will bear the signatures of the
great minds you commune with in secret. And, as the
years pass on, you will walk in the light of an ever-
enlarging multitude of well-chosen, silent, but never-
erring guides.

To read with profit, the books must be of a kind
calculated to inform the mind, correct the head, and
better the heart. These books should be read with
attention, understood, remembered, and their precepts,
put in practice. It depends less on number than qual-
ity. One good book, well understood and remembered,
is of more use than to have a superficial knowledge of
fifty, equally sound. Books of the right character pro-
duce reflection, and induce investigation. They are a
mirror of mind, for mind to look in. Of all the books-
ever written, no one contains so instructive, so sublime,,
and so great a variety, as the Bible. Resolve to read-
three chapters each day, for one year, and you will find
realities there, more wonderful than any pictures of
fiction, that have been drawn by the finest pencillings
of the master hand of the most practiced novel writer,
who has shone in the dazzling galaxy of ancient or
modern literature.

The advice in regard to reading only the best se-
lected works, leads me to say, read slowly. We some-
times rush over pages of valuable matter, because, at
a glance, they seem to be dull; and we leap along to
see how the story, if it be a story, is to end. We do
every thing in this age in a hurry; we demand not only
"fastr horses, but fast writers, fast preachers, and fast
lecturers. Said a noted seaman's preacher in one of

168

BEADING.

our large cities, "I work in a hurry, I sleep in a hurry,
and, if I ever die, I expect to die in a hurry." This is
the history of much of the present reading.

No one can too highly appreciate the magic power of
the press, or too deeply depricate its abuses. News-
papers have become the great highway of that intelli-
gence which exerts a controlling power over our nation,
catering the very-day food of the mind. Show us an
intelligent family of boys and girls, and we will show you
a family where newspapers and periodicals are plenty.
Nobody who has been without these private tutors can
know their educating power for good or evil. Have you
ever thought of the innumerable topics of discussion
which they suggest at the breakfast table ; the important
public measures with which, thus early our children
become acquainted ; great philanthropic questions of
the day, to which, unconsciously, their attention is
awakened, and the general spirit of intelligence which
is evoked by these quiet visitors ? Anything that
makes home pleasant, cheerful and chatty, thins the
haunts of vice and the thousand and one avenues of
temptation, should certainly be regarded, when we con-
sider its influence on the minds of the young, as a grea!
social and moral light.

A child beginning to read becomes delighted with a
newspaper, because he reads of names and things
which are familiar, and he will progress accordingly.
A newspaper in one year is worth a quarter's schooling
to a child. Every father must consider that informa-
tion is connected with advancement. The mother of a
family, being one of its heads, and having* a more

READING.

109

immediate charge of children, should herself be in-
structed. A mind occupied becomes fortified against
the ills of life, and is braced for emergency. Children
amused by reading or study are of course more consid-
erate and easily governed.

How many thoughtless young men have spent their
earnings in a tavern or grog shop who ought to have
been reading! How many parents who have not spent
twenty dollars for books for their families, would have
given thousands to reclaim a son or daughter who had
ignorantly or thoughtlessly fallen into temptation.

Take away the press, and the vast educating power
of the school and the college would soon come to an
end. Or, look one moment at the immense influence a
single writer has had upon an age, or upon the world —
Shakespeare in creating the drama, or Bacon and Des-
cartes in founding different systems of philosophy.
Who may estimate the influence of Charles Dickens
upon society, when by the magic of his pen he touched
the under world of poverty and want and sin, over
which the rich and the gay glided on, not knowing or
thinking what was beneath their feet, and marched all
this ghastly array of ragged and hungry children and
sorrowful women and discouraged men, and the fam-
ished forms from the poor-house, and the ugly visage
of the criminal, into the parlors of wealth and culture,
and there had them tell the story of their woes and
their suffering? Or who can tell the influence of a
McDonald, or a Beecher, or an Eggleston in entering
the wide realm of romance and compelling it to serve
truth, humanity and religion? Or who knows the

170

PERSE VE RANGE.

influence of Thomas Payne and Jefferson in strengthen-
ing the . cause of liberty in our struggle for national
independence ? Take one single writer of our own
land — Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. The single tale
of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," stirred the heart of this vast
nation to its profoundest depths. At the simple moving
of her pen millions of swords and bayonets gleamed
and flashed in the air, and vast armies met in deadly
array and fought face to face, till liberty, re-baptized in
blood, was given to man as man. This vast world
moves along the lines of thought and sentiment and
principle, and the press gives to these wings to fly and
tongues to speak.

Rev. G. S. Weaver says: "Continual dropping
wears a stone.*" So persevering labor gains our objects.
Perseverance is the virtue wanted, a lion-hearted pur-
pose of victory. It is this that builds, constructs,
accomplishes whatever is great, good, and valuable.

Perseverance built the pyramids on Egypt's plains,
erected the gorgeous temple at Jerusalem, reared the
seven -hilled city, inclosed in adamant the Chinese
empire, scaled the stormy, cloud-capped Alps, opened a
highway through the watery wilderness of the Atlantic,
leveled the forests of a new world, and reared in its
stead a community of states and nations. It has

PERSE VEBAMCE.

171

wrought from the marble block the exquisite creations-
of genius, painted on the canvas the gorgeous mimicry
of nature, and engraved on the metallic surface the
viewless substance of the shadow. It has put in motion
millions of spindles, winged as many flying shuttles,
harnessed a thousand iron steeds to as many freighted
cars, and set them flying from town to town and nation,
to nation, tunneled mountains of granite and annihilated
space with the lightning's speed. It has whitened the
waters of the world with the sails of a hundred nations,
navigated every sea and explored every land. It has
reduced nature in her thousand forms to as many
sciences, taught her laws, prophesied her future move-
ments, measured her untrodden spaces, counted her
myriad hosts of worlds, and computed their distances,,
dimensions, and velocities.

But greater still are the works of perseverance in the
world of mind. What are the productions of science
and art compared with the splendid achievements won
in the human soul? Wha^ is a monument of construc-
tive genius, compared witn the living domes of thought,
the sparkling temples of virtue, and the rich, glory-
wreathed sanctuaries of religion, which perseverance
has wrought out and reared in the souls of the good?"
What are the toil-sweated productions of wealth piled
in vast profusion around a Girard, or a Rothschild.,
when weighed against the stores of wisdom, the treas-
ures of knowledge, and the strength, -beauty and glory
with which this victorious virtue has enriched and
adorned a great multitude of minds during the march
of an hundred generations? How little can we tell, how

172

PERSEVERANCE.

little know, the brain-sweat, the heart-labor, the con-
science-struggles which it cost to make a Newton, a
Howard, or a Channing; how many days of toil, how
many nights of weariness, how many months and years
-••of vigilant, powerful effort, was spent to perfect in them
what the world has bowed to in reverence. Their
words have a power, their names a charm, and their
deeds a glory. How came this wealth of soul to be
theirs? Why are their names watchwords of power
;set high on the temple of fame? Why does childhood
lisp them in reverence, and age feel a thrill of pleasure
when they are mentioned?

They were the sons of perseverance — of unremitting
industry and toil. They were once as weak and help-
less as any of us — once as destitute of wisdom, virtue
and power as any infant. Once, the very alphabet of
that language which they have wielded with such
magic effect, was unknown to them. They toiled long
to learn it, to get its sounds, understand its dependen-
cies, and longer still to obtain the secret of its highest
charm and mightiest power, and yet even longer for
those living, glorious thoughts which they bade it bear
to an astonished and admiring world. Their char-
acters, which are now given to the world, and will be
to millions yet unborn as patterns of greatness and
goodness, were made by that untiring perseverance
which marked their whole lives. From childhood to
age they knew no such word as fail. Defeat only gave
them power; difficulty only taught them the necessity
-of redoubled exertions; dangers gave them courage;
the sight of great labors inspired in them correspond-

PERSEVERANCE.

ing exertions. So it has been with all men and all
women who have been eminently successful in any pro
fession or calling in life. Their success has been
wrought out by persevering industry. Successful men
owe more to their perseverance than to their natural
powers, their friends, or the favorable circumstances
around them Genius will falter by the side of labor ?
great powers will yield to great industry. Talent is
desirable, but perseverance is more so. It will make
mental powers, or, at least, it will strengthen those
already made. Yes, it will make mental power. The
most available and successful kind of mental power is
that made by the hand of cultivation.

It will also make friends. Who will not befriend
the persevering, energetic youth, the fearless man of
industry? Who is not a friend to him who is a friend
to himself? He who perseveres in business, and hard-
ships, and discouragements, will always find ready and
generous friends in every time of need. He who per-
severes in a course of wisdom, rectitude, and benevo
lence, is sure to gather around him friends who will be
true and faithful. Honest industry will procure friends
in any community and any part of the civilized world.
Go to the men of business, of worth, of influence, and
ask them who shall have their confidence and support.
They will tell you, the men who falter not by the way-
side, who toil on in their callings against every barrier.,
whose eye is bent upward, and whose motto is "Excel-
sior." These are the men to whom they give their
confidence. But they shun the lazy, the indolent, the
fearful, and faltering. They would as soon trust the

174

PESEVERANCE.

wind as such men. If you would win friends, be steady
and true to yourself; be the unfailing friend of your
own purposes, stand by your own character, and others
will come to your aid. Though the earth quake and
the heavens gather blackness, be true to your course
and yourself. Quail not, nor doubt of the result; vic-
tory will be yours. Friends will come. A thousand
arms of strength will be bared to sustain you.

First, be sure that your trade, your profession, your
calling in life is a good one — one that God and good-
ness sanctions; then be true as steel to it. Think for
it, plan for it, work for it, live for it; throw in your
mind, might, strength, heart, and soul into your actions
for it, and success will crown you her favored child.
No matter whether your object be great or small,
whether it be the planting of a nation or a patch of
potatoes, the same perseverance is necessary. Every
body admires an iron determination, and comes to the
aid of him who directs it to good.

But perseverance will not only make friends, but it
will make favorable circumstances. It will change the
face of all things around us. It is silly and cowardly
to complain of the circumstances that are against us.
Clouds of darkness, evil forebodings, opposition, ene-
mies, barriers of every kind, will vanish before a stout
heart and resolute energy of soul. The Alps stood
between Napoleon and Italy, which he desired to con-
quer. He scaled the mountain and descended upon his
prey. His startling descent more than half conquered
the country. He forced every circumstance into his
favor. His greatest barrier proved a sure means of

PEIiSE VE RANGE.

175

victory. A conquered enemy is often the readiest
slave. So a barrier once scaled affords a vantage-
ground for our future efforts. Opposing circumstances
often create strength, both mental and physical. Labor
makes us strong. Opposition gives us greater power
of resistance. To overcome one barrier gives us
greater ability to overcome the next. It is cowardice
to grumble about circumstances. Some men always
talk as though fate had woven a web of circumstances
against them, and it is useless for them to try to break
through it. Out upon such dastardly whining! It is
their business to dash on in pursuit of their object
against everything. Then circumstances will gradually
turn in their favor, and they will deem themselves the
favored children of destiny.

Look at nature. She has a voice, which is the voice
of God, teaching a thousand lessons of perseverance.
The lofty mountains are wearing down by slow de-
grees. The ocean is gradually, but slowly, filling up,
by deposits from its thousand rivers. The Niagara
Falls have worn back several miles through the hard
limestone, over which it pours its thundering columns
of water, and will by-and-by drain the great lake which
feeds its boiling chasm. The Red Sea and whole
regions of the Pacific ocean are gradually filling up by
the labors of a little insect, so small as to be almost
invisible to the naked eye. These stupendous works
are going on before our eyes, by a slow but sure pro-
cess. They teach a great lesson of perseverance.
Nature has but one voice on this subject, that is " per-
severe." God has but one voice, that is " persevere, "

176

PERSEVERANCE.

and duty proclaims the same lesson. More depends
upon an active perseverance than upon genius. Says a
common sense author upon this subject, "Genius, unex-
erted, is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a
forest of oaks." There may be epics in men's brains^
just as there are oaks in acorns, but the tree and the
bark must come out before we can measure them. We
very naturally recall here that large class of grumblers
and wishers, who' spend their time in longing to be
higher than they are, while they should have been
employed to advance themselves. These bitterly mor-
alize on the injustice of society. Do they want a
change ? Let them then change ! Who prevents them ?
If you are as high as your faculties will permit you to
rise in the scale of society, why should you complain
of men?

It is God that arranged the law of precedence. Im-
plead Him or be silent! If you have capacity for a
higher station, take it. What hinders you? How
many men would love to go to sleep beggars and wake
up Rothschilds or Astors? How many would fain go
to bed dunces, to be waked up Solomons? You reap
what you have sown. Those who have sown dunce-
seed, vice-seed, laziness-seed, usually get a crop. They
that sow the wind reap a whirlwind. A man of mere
" capacity undeveloped " is only an organized degrada-
tion with a shine on it. A flint and a genius that will
not strike fire are no better than wet junk-wood. We
have Scripture for it, that " a living dog is better than
a dead lion!" If you would go up, go — if you would
be seen, shine. At the present day eminent position.

PERSEVEllAtfCA

177

in any profession, is the result of hard, unwearied
labor. Men ean no longer fly at one dash into eminent
position. They have got to hammer it out by steady
and rugged blows. The world is no longer clay; but
rather iron, in the hands of its workers.

Work is the order of this day. The slow penny is
surer than the quick dollar. The slow trotter will out-
travel the fleet racer. Genius darts, flutters, and tires;
but perseverance wears and wins. The all-day horse
wins the race. The afternoon-man wears off the laurels*
The last blow finishes the nail.

Men must learn to labor and to wait, if they would
succeed. Brains grow by use as well as hands. The
greatest man is the one who uses his brains the most,
who has added most to his natural stock of power.
Would you have fleeter feet ? Try them in the race.
Would you have stronger minds? Put them at rational
thinking. They will grow strong by action. Would
you have greater success? Use greater and more
rational and constant efforts? Does competition trouble
you? Work away; what is your competitor but a
man? Are you a coward, that you shrink from the
contest ? Then you ought to be beaten. Is the end of
your labors a long way off? Every step takes you
nearer to* it. Is it a weary distance to look at? Ah,
you are faint-hearted! That is the trouble with the
multitude of youth. Youth are not so lazy as they are
cowardly. They may bluster at first, but they won't
"stick it out." Young farmer, do you covet a home-
stead, nice and comfortable, for yourself and that sweet
one of your day-dreams? What hinders tha* you
12

178

PLUCK.

should not have it? Persevering industry, with proper
economy, will give you the farm. A man can get
what he wants if he is not faint-hearted. Toil is the
price of success. Learn it, young farmer, mechanic,
student, minister, physician, Christian. Learn it, ye
formers of character, ye followers of Christ, ye would
be men and women. Ye must have something to do,
and do it with all your might. Ye must harden your
hands and sweat your brains. Ye must work your
nerves and strain your sinews. Ye must be at it, and
always at it. No trembling, doubting, hesitating, flying
the track. Like the boy on the rock, ye cannot go
back. Onward ye must go. There is a great work
for ye all to do, a deep and earnest life-work, solemn,
real and useful. Life is no idle game, no farce to
amuse and be forgotten. It is a fixed and stern reality,
fuller of duties than the sky is of stars.

There is seldom a line of glory written upon the
earth's face but a line of suffering runs parallel with it;
and they that read the lustrous syllables of the one,
and stop not to decipher the spotted and worn inscrip-
tion of the other, get the lesser half of the lesson earth
has to give.

The hopelessness of any one's accomplishing any-
thing without pluck is illustrated by an old East Indian

PLUCK.

179

fable. A mouse that dwelt near the abode of a great
magician was k *.pt in such constant distress by its fear
of a cat, that < Ue magician, taking pity on it, turned it
into a cat i* ,elf. Immediately it began to surfer from
its fear of a. dog, so the magician turned it into a dog.
Then iJ: began to suffer from fear of a tiger, and the
magician turned it into a tiger. Then it began to suffer
from its fear of huntsmen, and the magician, in disgust,
said, "Bea mouse again. As you have only the heart
of a mouse, it is impossible to help you by giving you
the body of a nobler animal." And the poor creature
again became a mouse.

It is the same with a mouse-hearted man. He may
be clothed with the powers, and placed in the position
of brave men, but he will always act like a mouse ; and
public opinion is usually the great magician that finally
says to such a person, "Go back to your obscurity
again. You have only the heart of a mouse, and it
is useless to try to make a lion of you."

Many depend on luck instead of pluck. The P left
off that word makes all the difference. The English
say luck is all; "it is better to be born lucky than
wise." The Spanish, "The worst pig gets the best
acorn." The French, "A good bone never falls to a
good dog." The German, " Pitch the lucky man into
the Nile, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth."

Fortune, success, fame, position are never gained, but
bv oiously, determinedly, bravely sticking, living to a
thing till it is fairly accomplished. In short, you must
carry a thing through if you want to be anybody or
anything. No matter if it aoe^ cost you the pleasure,

ISO

SELF-RELIANCE.

the society, the thousand pearly gratifications of life*
No matter for these. Stick to the thing and carry it
through. Believe you were made for the matter, and
that no one else can do it. Put forth your whole ener-
gies. Be awake, electrify yourself; go forth to the
task. Only once learn to carry a thing through in all
its completeness and proportion, and you will become a
hero. You will think better of yourself; others will
think better of you. The world in its very heart
admires the stern, determined doer. It sees in him its
best sight, its brightest object, its richest treasure.
Drive right along, then, in whatever you undertake.
Consider yourself amply sufficient for the deed and you
will succeed.

God never intended that strong, independent beings
should be reared by clinging to others, like the ivy to
the oak, for support. The difficulties, hardships, and
trials of life — the obstacles one encounters on the road
to fortune — are positive blessings. They knit his
muscles more firmly, and teach him self-reliance, just
as by wrestling with an athlete who is superior to us,
we increase our own strength, and learn the secret of
his skill. All difficulties come to us, as Bunyan says,
of temptation, like the lion which met Samson; the
first time we encounter them they roar and gnash their

SELF-RELIANCE.

181

teeth, but, once subdued, we find a nest of honey in
them. Peril is the very element in which power is
developed. "Ability and necessity dwell near each
other," said Pythagoras.

The greatest curse that can befall a young man is
to lean, while his character is forming, on others for
support. He who begins with crutches will generally
end with crutches. Help from within always strength-
ens, but help from without invariably enfeebles its
recipient. It is not in the sheltered garden or the
hot-house, but on the rugged Alpine cliffs, where the
storms beat most violently, that the toughest plants are
reared.

The oak that stands alone to contend with the
tempest's blasts, only takes deeper root and stands
the firmer for ensuing conflicts; while the forest tree,
when the woodman's ax has spoiled its surroundings,
sways and bends and trembles, and perchance is up-
rooted. So it is with men. Those who are trained
to self-reliance are ready to go out and contend in the
sternest conflicts of life; while men who have always
leaned for support on those around them, are never
prepared to breast the storms of adversity that arise.

Many a young man — and for that matter, many
who are older — halts at his outset upon life's battle-
field, and falters and faints for what he conceives to be
a necessary capital for a start. A few thousand dollars,
or hundreds, or "something handsome" in the way of
money in his purse, he fancies to be about the only
thing needful to secure his fortune.

The best capital, in nine cases out of ten, a young

182

SELF-RELIANCE,

man can start in the world with, is robust health, sound
morals, a fair intelligence, a w^ill to work his way hon-
estly and bravely, and if it be possible, a trade —
whether he follows it for a livelihood or not. He can
always fall back upon a trade when other paths are
closed. Any one who will study the lives of memora-
ble men — apart from the titled, or hereditarily great — -
will find that a large majority of them rose from the
ranks, with no capital for a start, save intelligence,,
energy, industry, and a will to rise and conquer. In
the mechanic and artizan pursuits, in commerce, in
agriculture, and even in the paths of literature, science
and art, many of the greatest names sprung from pov-
erty and obscurity. Dr. Johnson made himself illus-
trious by his intellect and industry — so did Franklin^
and so have multitudes whose memories are renowned.

The greatest heroes of the battle-field — as Napo-
leon, Hannibal, Cromwell — some of the greatest states-
men and orators, ancient and modern — as Demosthenes,,
Chatham, Burke, and our own Webster and Clay —
could boast no patrician advantages, no capital in goldr
to start with. The grandest fortunes ever accumu-
lated or possessed on earth were and are, the fruit of
endeavor that had no capital to begin with save en-
ergy, intellect, and the will. From Crcesus down to
Astor, the story is the same — not only in the getting
of wealth, but also in the acquirement of various emi-
nence— those men have won most, who relied most
upon themselves.

The path of success in business is invariably the path
of common sense. Notwithstanding all that is said

SELF-HE LI ANCE.

183

about " lucky hits," the best kind of success in every
man's life is not that which comes by accident. The
only "good time coming" we are justified in hoping
for, is that which we are capable of making for our-
selves. The fable of the labors of Hercules is indeed
the type of all human doing and success. Every youth
should be made to feel that if he would get through
the world usefully and happily, he must rely mainly
upon himself and his own independent energies. Mak-
ing a small provision for young men is hardly justifi-
able; and it is of all things the most prejudicial to
themselves. They think what they have much larger
than it really is; and they make no exertion. The
young should never hear any language but this: "You
have your own way to make, and it depends upon your
own exertions whether you starve or not." Outside
help is your greatest curse. It handcuffs effort, stifles
aspiration, shuts the prison door upon emulation, turns
the key on energy.

The wisest charity is to help a man to help himself.
To put a man in the way of supporting himself gives
him a new lease of life, makes him feel young again,
for it is very many times all the sick man needs to
restore him to perfect health.

People who have been bolstered up and levered all
their lives, are seldom good for anything in a crisis.
When misfortune comes, they look around for some-
body to cling to, or lean upon. If the prop is not
there, down they go. Once down, they are as help-
less as capsized turtles, or unhorsed men in armor, and
they can not find their feet again without assistance.

184

SELF-RELIANCE.

There are multitudes of such men. They are like
summer vines, which never grow even ligneous, but
stretch out a thousand little hands to grasp the stronger
shrubs; and if they cannot reach them, they lie dishev-
elled in the grass, hoof-trodden, and beaten of every
storm. It will be found that the first real movement
upward will not take place, until, in a spirit of resolute
self-denial, indolence, so natural to almost every one, is
mastered. Necessity is, usually, the spur that sets the
sluggish energies in motion. Poverty, therefore, is
oftener a blessing to a young man than prosperity;
for, while the one tends to stimulate his powers, the
other inclines them to languor and disuse. But, is it
not very discreditable for the young man, who is
favored with education, friends, and all the outside
advantages which could be desired as means to worldly
success, to let those who stand in these respects, at the
beginning, far below him, gradually approach as the
steady years move on, and finally outstrip him in the
race? It is not only discreditable, but disgraceful. A
man's true position in society, is that which he achieves
for himself — he is worth to the world no more, no less.
As he builds for society in useful work, so he builds for
himself. He is a man for what he does, not for what
his father or his friends have done. If they have done
well, and given him a position, the deeper the shame,
if he sink down to a meaner level through self-indul-
gence and indolence.

If a boy is not trained to endure and to bear trouble,
he will grow up a girl; and a boy that is a girl has all
a girl's weakness without any of her regal qualities.

LABOR.

185

A woman made out of a woman is God's noblest work;
a woman made out of a man is his meanest. A child
rightly brought up will be like a willow branch, which,
broken off and touching the ground, at once takes root.
Bring up your children so that they will root easily in
their own soil, and not forever be grafted into your old
trunk and boughs.

There is dignity in toil — in toil of the hand as well
as toil of the head — in toil to provide for the bodily
wants of an individual life, as well as in toil to promote
some enterprise of world-wide fame. All labor that
tends to supply man's wants, to increase man's happi-
ness, to elevate man's nature — an a word, all labor that
is honest — is honorable too. Labor clears the forest,
and drains the morass, and makes "the wilderness
rejoice and blossom as the rose." Labor drives the
plow, and scatters the seeds, and reaps the harvest, and
grinds the corn, and converts it into bread, the staff of
life. Labor, tending the pastures and sweeping the
waters as well as cultivating the soil, provides with
daily sustenance the nine hundred millions of the family
of man. Labor gathers the gossamer web of the cat-
erpillar, the cotton from the field, and the fleece from
the flock, and weaves it into raiment soft and warm
and beautiful, the purple robe of the prince and the

186

LABOR.

gray gown of the peasant being alike its handiwork
Labor moulds the brick, and splits the slate, and quar-
ries the stone, and shapes the column, and rears not
only the humble cottage, but the gorgeous palace, and
the tapering spire, and the stately dome. Labor, diving
deep into the solid earth, brings up its long-hidden
stores of coal to feed ten thousand furnaces, and in
millions of homes to defy the winter's cold.

Labor explores the rich veins of deeply-buried rocks,
extracting the gold and silver, the copper and tin.
Labor smelts the iron, and moulds it into a thousand
shapes for use and ornament, from the massive pillar to
the tiniest needle, from the ponderous anchor to the
wire gauze, from the mighty fly-wheel of the steam-
engine to the polished purse-ring or the glittering bead.
Labor hews down the gnarled oak, and shapes the
timber, and builds the ship, and guides it over the deep?
plunging through the billows, and wrestling with the
tempest, to bear to our shores the produce of every
clime. Labor, laughing at difficulties, spans majestic
rivers, carries viaducts over marshy swamps, suspends
bridges over deep ravines, pierces the solid mountain
with the dark tunnel, blasting rocks and filling hollows,
and while linking together with its iron but loving
grasp all nations of the earth, verifying, in a literal
sense, the ancient prophecy, "Every valley shall be
exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be brought
low;" labor draws forth its delicate iron thread, and
stretching it from city to city, from province to prov-
ince, through mountains and beneath the sea, realizes
more than fancy ever fabled, while it constructs a

LABOR.

187

chariot on which speech may outstrip the wind, and
compete with lightning, lor the telegraph flies as rapidly
as thought itself.

Labor, the mighty magician, walks forth into a
region uninhabited and waste ; he looks earnestly at the
scene, so quiet in its desolation, then waving his wonder-
working wand, those dreary valleys smile with golden
harvests ; those barren mountain-slopes are clothed with
foliage; the furnace blazes; the anvil rings; the busy
wheel whirls round; the town appears; the mart of
commerce, the hall of science, the temple of religion,,
rear high their lofty fronts; a forest of masts, gay with
varied pennons, rises from the harbor; representatives *
of far-off regions make it their resort; science enlists
the elements of earth and heaven in its service; art,
awakening, clothes its strength with beauty; civiliza-
tion smiles; liberty is glad; humanity rejoices; piety
exults, for the voice of industry and gladness is heard
on every side. Working men walk worthy of your
vocation! You have a noble escutcheon; disgrace it
not. There is nothing really mean and low but sin.
Stoop not from your lofty throne to defile yourselves
by contamination with intemperance, licentiousness, or
any form of evil. Labor, allied with virtue, may look
up to heaven and not blush, while all worldly dignities,
prostituted to vice, will leave their owner without a
corner of the universe in which to hide his shame. You
will most successfully prove the honor of toil by illus-
trating in your own persons its alliance with a sober,
righteous and godly life. Be ye sure of this, that the
man of toil who works in a spirit of obedient, loving

188

LABOR.

homage to God, does no less than cherubim and ser&
phim in their loftiest flights and holiest songs.

Labor achieves grander victories, it weaves more
durable trophies, it holds wider sway, than the con-
queror. His name becomes tainted and his monuments
crumble; but labor converts his red battle-fields into
gardens, and erects monuments significant of better
things. It rides in a chariot driven by the wind. It
writes with the lightning. It sits crowned as a queen
in a thousand cities, and sends up its roar of triumph
from a million wheels. It glistens in the fabric of the
loom, it rings and sparkles from the steely hammer, it
glories in shapes of beauty, it speaks in words of power,
it makes the sinewy arm strong with liberty, the poor
man's heart rich with content, crowns the swarthy and
sweaty brow with honor, and dignity, and peace.

Don't live in hope with your arms folded; fortune
smiles on those who roll up their sleeves, and put their
shoulders to the wheel. You cannot dream yourself
into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself
one. To love and to labor is the sum of living, and
yet how many think they live who neither love or
labor.

The man and woman who are above labor, and des-
pise the laborer, show a want of common sense, and
forget that every article that is used is the product of
more or less labor, and that the air they breathe, and the
circulation of the blood in the veins, is the result of the
labor of the God of nature. The time was when kings
and queens stimulated their subjects to labor by example.
Queen Mary had her regular hours of work, and had

LABOR.

18f>

one of her maids of honor read to her while she plied
the needle. Sir Walter Raleigh relates a cutting reply
made to him by the wife of a noble duke, at whose
house he lodged over night. In the morning he heard
her give directions to a servant relative to feeding the
pigs. On going into the breakfast room he jocosely
asked her if the pigs had all breakfasted. "All, sir, but
the strange pig I am about to feed," was the witty reply.
Sir Walter was mute, and walked up to the trough.

The noblest thing in the world is honest labor. It is
the very preservative principle of the universe. Wise
labor brings order out of chaos; it turns deadly bogs
and swamps into grain-bearing fields; it rears cities; it
adorns the earth with architectural monuments, and
beautifies them with divinest works of art; it whitens
the seas with the wings of commerce; it brings remote
lands into mutual and profitable neighborhood; it binds
continents together with the fast-holding bands of rail-
roads and telegraphs; it extinguishes barbarism and
plants civilization upon its ruins; it produces mighty
works of genius in prose and verse, which gladden
the hearts of men forever. Work, therefore, with
pride and gladness, for thereby you wall be united
by a common bond with all the best and noblest who
have lived, who are now living, and who shall ever be
born.

Washington and his lady were examples of industry,,
plainess, frugality and economy — and thousands of
others of the wealthy, labored in the field and kitchen,
in older times, before folly superseded wisdom, and
fashion drove common sense and economy off the track.

190

LABOR

No man has the right to expect a good fortune,
unless he goes to work and deserves it. "Luck!" cried
a self-made man," I never had any luck but by getting
up at five every morning and working as hard as I
could." No faithful workman finds his task a pastime.
We must all toil or steal — no matter how we name
•our stealing. A brother of the distinguished Edmund
Burke was found in a reverie after listening to one of
his most eloquent speeches in Parliament, and being
asked the cause, replied, " I have been wondering how
Ned has contrived to monopolize all the talents of aie
family; but then I remember, when we were ?': play he
was always at work."

The education, moral and intellectu/ i, of every indi-
vidual must be chiefly his own work How else could
it happen that young men, who h-° » e had precisely the
same opportunities, should be co1 tinually presenting us
with such different results, and • ashing to such opposite
destinies? Difference of talent Arill not solve it, because
that difference is very often in favor of the disappointed
candidate.

You will see issuing from the walls of the same col-
lege— nay, sometimes from tha bosom of the same
family — two young men, of whom the one shall be
admitted to be a genius of high ?rder, the other
scarcely above the point of mediocrity; yc ~*ou shall
see the genius sinking and perishing in poverty, obscu-
rity and wretchedness, while, on the other hand, you
shall observe the mediocre plodding his slow but sure
way up the hill of life, gaining steadfast footing at
every step, and mounting, at length, to eminence and

LABOR

191

distinction — an ornament to his family a blessing to
his country,

Now, whose work is this? Manifestly their own.
Men are the architects of their respective fortunes. It
is the fiat of fate from which no power of genius can
absolve you. Genius, unexerted, is like the poor moth
that flutters around a candle till it scorches itself to
death.

It is tnis capacity for high and long continued exer-
tion, this vigorous power of profound and searching
investigation, this careering and wide-spreading com-
prehension of mind, and those long reaches of thought,
that

" Pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom line could never touch the ground,
And drag up drowned honor by the locks."

What we have seen of men and of the world con-
vinces us that one of the first conditions of enjoying life
is to have something to do, something great enough to
rouse the mind and noble enough to satisfy the heart,
and then to give our mind and heart, our thought and
toil and affections to it, to labor for it, in the fine words
of Robert Hall, "with an ardor bordering on enthu-
siasm," or, as a yet greater sage expresses it, to "do it
with all our mighty

A life of full and constant employment is the only
safe and happy one. If we suffer the mind and body
to be unemployed, our enjoyments, as well as our
labors, will be terminated,, One of the minor uses of

192

LABOR.

steady employment is, that it keeps one out ol mischief,
for truly an idle brain is the devil's workshop, and a
ls~y man the devil's bolster. To be occupied is to be
possessed as by a tenant, whereas to be idle is to be
empty; and when the doors of the imagination are
opened, temptation finds a ready access, and evil
thoughts come trooping in. It is observed at sea th^t
men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny
as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when
there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to
"scour the anchor"

Labor, honest labor, is mighty and beautiful. Activ-
ity is the ruling element of life, and its highest relish
Luxuries and conquests are the result of labor; we can
imagine nothing without it. The noblest man of earth
is he who puts his hands cheerfully and proudly to honest
labor. Labor is a business and ordinance of God.
Suspend labor, and where are the glory and pomp of
earth — the fruit, fields, and palaces, and the fashioning
of matter for which men strive and war? Let the
labor - scorner look to himself and learn what are the
trophies. From the crown of his head to the sole of
his foot, he is the debtor and slave of toil. The labor
which he scorns has tricked him into the stature and
appearance of a man. Where gets he garmenting and
equipage? Let labor answer. Labor — which makes
music in the mines and the furrow and the forge — oh,
scorn not labor, you man who never yet earned a
morsel of bread! Labor pities you, proud fool, and
laughs you to scorn. You shall pass to dust, forgotten;
but labor will live on forever, glorious in its conquests
and monuments.

ENEHO Y.

193

The longer we live the more we are certain the
great difference between men — between the feeble and
the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy;
invincible determination — a purpose, once fixed, and
then death or victory! That quality will do anything
that can be done in this world; and no talents, no cir-
cumstances, no opportunities, will make a two-legged
creature a man without it.

Never suffer your energies to stagnate. There is no
genius of life like the genius of energy and industry.
All the traditions current among very young men that
certain great characters have wrought their greatness
by an inspiration, as it were, grows out of a sad mis-
take. There are no rivals so formidable as those
earnest, determined minds, which reckon the value of
every hour, and which achieve eminence by persistent
application.

The difference between one boy and another consists
not so much in talent as in energy. Provided the
dunce has persistency and application, he will inevitably
head the cleverer fellow without these qualities, Slow
but sure wins the race. It is perseverance that explains
how the position of boys at school is often reversed in
real life; and it is curious to ncte how some who were
then so clever have since become so common place,
whilst others, dull boys, of whom nothing was expected,
slow in their faculties, but sure in their pace, have
assumed the position of leaders of mea We recollect
13

194

ENERGY.

that when a boy we stood in the same class with one of
the greatest of dunces. One teacher after another had
tried his skill upon him and failed. Corporeal punish-
ment, the fools -cap, coaxing, and earnest entreaty,
proved alike fruitless. Sometimes the experiment was
tried of putting him at the top of his class, and it was
curious to note the rapidity with which he gravitated
to the inevitable bottom, like a lump of lead passing
through quicksilver. The youth was given up by
many teachers as an incorrigible dunce — one of them
pronouncing him to be "a stupendous booby." Yet,
slow though he was, this dunce had a dull energy and a
sort of beefy tenacity of purpose, which grew with his
muscles and his manhood; and, strange to say, when
he at length came to take part in the practical business
of life, he was found heading most of his school com-
panions, and eventually left the greater number of them
far behind. The tortoise in the right road will beat a
racer in the wrong. It matters not though a youth be
slow, if he be but diligent. Quickness of parts may
even prove a defect, inasmuch as the boy who learns
readily will often forget quite as readily ; and also
because he finds no need of cultivating that quality of
application and perseverance which the slower youth
is compelled to exercise, and which proves so valuable
an element in the formation of every character. The
highest culture is not obtained from teachers when at
school or college, so much as by our own diligent self-
education when we have become men. Parents need
not be in too great haste to see their children's talents
forced into bloom. Let them watch and wait patiently,

ENERGY.

195

letting good example and quiet training do their work,
and leave the rest to Providence. Let them see to it
that the youth is provided, by free exercise of his bodily
powers, with a full stock of physical health; set him
fairly on the road of self-culture; carefully train his
habits of application and perseverance; and as he grows
older, if the right stuff be in him, he will be enabled
vigorously and effectively to cultivate himself.

He who has heart has everything; and who doth not
burn doth not inflame. It is astonishing how much
may be accomplished in self-culture by the energetic
and the persevering, who are careful to avail them-
selves of opportunities, and use up the fragments of
spare time which the idle permit to run to waste. In
study as in business, energy is the great thing. We
must not only strike the iron while it is hot, but strike
it until it is made hot.

Give us not men like weathercocks, that change with
every wind, but men like mountains, who change the
winds themselves. There is always room for a man of
force, and he makes room for many. You cannot
dream yourself into a character; you must hammer
and forge yourself one. Therefore don't live in hope
with your arms folded; fortune smiles on those who
roll up their sleeves and put their shoulders to the
wheel. "I can't! it is impossible!" said a foiled lieuten-
ant to Alexander. "Begone!" shwuted the conquering
Macedonian in reply — "there is nothing impossible to
him who will try;" and to make good his words, the
haughty warrior, not yet come to weep that there were
no more worlds to subdue, charged with a phalanx the

196

LUGE AND PLUCK.

rock-crested fortress that had defied his timid subal-
tern, and the foe were swept down as with the besom
of destruction.

A man's character is seen in small matters; and
from even so slight a test as the mode in which a man
wields a hammer, his energy may in some measure be
inferred, Thus an eminent Frenchman hit off in a
single phrase the characteristic quality of the inhabit-
ants of a particular district, in which a friend of his
proposed to buy land and settle. "Beware," said he,
"of making a purchase there; I know the men of that
department; the pupils who come from it to our veter-
inary school at Paris, do not strike hard ufton the anvil;
they want energy; and you will not get a satisfactory
return on any capital you may invest there." A fine
and just appreciation of character, indicating the accu-
rate and thoughtful observer; and strikingly illustrative
of the fact that it is the energy of the individual men
that gives strength to a state, and confers a value even
upon the very soil which they cultivate.

It is a Spanish maxim, that he who loseth wealth,
loseth much; he who loseth a friend, loseth more; but
he who loseth his energies, loseth all.

Young man, your success or your failure, your weal
or woe of life will hang largely :n the manner in which
you treat these two words.

LUCK AND PLUCK.

197

Rev. G. S. Weaver says: "The word luck is sug-
gestive of a want of law." This idea has passed into
many common proverbs, such as these: "It is more
by hit than good wit;" "It is as well to be born lucky
as rich;" "Fortune is a fickle jade;" "Risk nothing,
win nothing;" and more of a similar import, all ignoring
the grand rule of law and resting upon the atheistical
idea of chance.

Our fathers were good, religious people, and did not
mean to foster atheism when they talked about luck,
and gave a half-way assent to its Godless reality. If
the universe were an infinite chaos; if order had no
throne in its wide realm; if universal law were a fable
of fancy; if God were a Babel, or the world a Pan-
demonium, there might be such a thing as luck. But
while [from the particle to the globe, > from the animal-
cule to the archangel, there is not a being or a thing, a
time or an event J) disconnected with the great govern-
ment of eternal law and order, we cannot see how such
a game of chance as the word luck supposes can be
admitted into any corner of the great world. Luck!
What is it? A lottery? A hap-hazard? A frolic of
gnomes? A blind -man's -bluff among the laws? A
ruse among the elements? A trick of dame Nature?
Has any scholar defined luck, any philosopher explained
its nature, any chemist shown us its elements? j Is luck
that strange, nondescript unmateriality that does all
things among men that they cannot account for ? If
so, why does not luck make a fool speak words of wis-
dom; an ignoramus utter lectures on philosophy; a
stupid dolt write the great works of music and poetry;

198

LUCK AND PLUCK.

a double-fingered dummy create the beauties of art, or
an untutored savage the wonders of mechanism?

If we should go into a country where the sluggard's
farm is covered with the richest grains and fruits, and
where industry is rewarded only with weeds and
brambles: where the drunkard looks sleek and beauti-
ful, and his home cheerful and happy, while temperance
wears the haggard face and eats the bread of want and
misery; where labor starves, while idleness is fed and
grows fat; where common sense is put upon the pillory,,
while twaddle and moonshine are raised to distinction;
where genius lies in the gutter and ignorance soars to
the skies; where virtue is incarcerated in prison, while
vice is courted and wooed by the sunlight, we might
possibly be led to believe that luck had something to do
there. But where we see, as we everywhere do in our
world, the rewards of industry, energy, wisdom and
virtue constant as the warmth in sunlight or beauty in
flowers, we must deny in toto the very existence of this
good and evil essence which men have called luck.

Was it luck that gave Girard and Astor, Rothschild
and Gray their vast wealth? Was it luck that won
victories for Washington, Wellington and Napoleon?
Was it luck that carved Venus de Medici, that wrote
the "^Eneid," "Paradise Lost," and "Festus?" Was.
it luck that gave Morse his telegraph, or Fulton his
steamboat, or Franklin the lightning for his plaything?
Is it luck that gives the merchant his business, the
lawyer his clients, the minister his hearers, the phy-
sician his patients, the mechanic his labor, the farmer
his harvest ? Na}T, verily. No man believes it. And

LUCK AND PLUCK.

199

yet many are the men who dream of luck, as though
such a mysterious spirit existed, and did sometimes
humor the whims of visionary cowards and drones.

Many are the young men who waste the best part of
their lives in attempts to woo this coy maid into their
embraces. They enter into this, or that, or the other
speculation, with the dreamy hope that luck will pay
them a smiling visit. Some go to California, or Aus-
tralia, or the " Far West," or to the torrid or the frigid
zone, or some wondrous away -off place, with no fair
prospect or hope of success from their own energies
and exertions, but depending almost wholly on a gentle
smile from capricious luck. Poor fellows! they find
that luck does not get so far from home.

Some, less daring and more lazy, loiter about home,
drawl around town, or loll through the country, whose
only trust or expectation is in a shuffle of luck in their
favor. They know they deserve nothing, yet, with an>
impudence hard as brass, they will pray to luck for a
"windfall," or a "fat office," or a "living," and fool-
ishly wait for an answer. These are the men that
make your gamblers, your house thieves, your counter-
feiters, your gentlemen loafers. They are not men that
originally mean any harm. But they believe in luck,,
and their trust is in luck, and they are going to have it
out of luck some way. They despised meanness at
first, perhaps, as much as you and I do; but somebody
told them of luck, and they believed, and lo ! they got
duped. Little by little they went over to meanness,
waiting all the while for a shake of the hand from luck.

Some of the believers in luck, of more moral firm

200

LUCK AND PLUCK.

ness, dally with all life's great duties, and so do about
the same as nothing, and eat the bread of disappoint-
ment. They do a little at this business, and luck does
not smile. They do a little at that, still luck keeps
away. They do a little at something else, they hear
not a foot-fall from luck. And so they fritter away
time and life. These are the do-littles. Hard-work-
ing men they ai e frequently. It is with them as though
they had started to go to a place a thousand miles dis-
tant, leading to which there were many roads. They
set out at full speed on one road, go a few miles, and
get tired, and so conclude to turn back and try another
And so they try one road after another, each time
returning to the starting-place. In a little while it is
too late to get there at the appointed time, and so they
mope along any road they happen to be on till the day
Is over.

They crave a good they do not earn; they pray to
luck to give what does not belong to them; their whole
inward life is a constant craving wish for something to
which they have no just claim. It is a morbid, fever-
ish covetousness, which , is very apt to end in the con-
clusion, " The world owes me a living, and a living I'll
have," and so they go out to get a living as best they
may. They fancy that every rich and honored man
has got his good by some turn of luck, and hence they
feel that he has no special right to his property or his
honors, and so they will get either from him if they
can. They look upon the world, not as a great hive
of industry, where men are rewarded according to
their labors and merits3 but as a grand lottery, a mag-

LUCK AND PLUCK.

201

nificent scheme of chance, in which fools and idlers
have as fair a show as talent and labor.

In my humble opinion, this philosophy of luck is at
the bottom of more ^dishonesty, wickedness, and moral
corruption than any thing else. It sows its seeds in
youthful minds just at that visionary season when judg-
ment has not been ripened by experience nor imagin-
ation corrected by wisdom. And it takes more minds
from the great school-house of useful life, and more
arms from the great workshop of human industry, than
any other one thing to which my mind reverts. It is
a moral palsy, against which every just man should
arm himself. The cure of the evil is found in pluck.

It is not luck, but pluck, which weaves the web of
life; it is not luck, but pluck, which turns the wheel of
fortune. It is pluck that amasses wealth, that crowns
men with honors, that forges the luxuries of life. I
use the term pluck as synonymous with whole-hearted
energy, genuine bravery of soul.

That man is to be pitied who is too fearful and cow-
ardly to go out and do battle for an honest living and
a competence in the great field of human exertion.
He is the man of luck, bad luck. Poor fellow! He
lost his luck when he lost his pluck. Good pluck is
good luck. Bad pluck is bad luck. Many a man has
lost his luck, but never while he had good pluck left.
Men lose their luck by letting their energies eke
through bad habits and unwise projects. One man
loses his luck in his late morning naps, another in his
late evening hours. One loses his luck in the bar-room,
another in the ball-room; one down by the river hold-

20?

LUCK AND PLUCK.

ing the boyish fishing-rod, another in the woods chasing
down the innocent squirrel. One loses his luck in folly,
one in fashion, one in idleness, one in high living, one
in dishonesty, one in brawls, one in sensualism, and a
great many in bad management. Indeed, bad manage-
ment is at the bottom of nearly all bad luck. It is bad
management to train up a family of bad habits, to eat
out one's living and corrupt his life.A It is bad manage-
ment to drink liquor, and eat tobacco, and smoke, and
swear, and tattle, and visit soda-fountains, and cream
saloons, and theatres, and brothels, and live high, and
chase after the fashions, and fret and scold, and get
angry, and abuse people, and mind other people's
business and neglect one's own. It is bad manage-
ment to expose one's health or overtax one's powers,
and get sick, and take drugs to get well ; to be idle or
extravagant, or mean or dishonest. All these things
tend to bring that evil genius which men call bad luck.

Indeed, there is hardly a word in the vocabulary
which is more cruelly abused than the word " luck."
To all the faults and failures of men, their positive sins
and their less culpable short-comings, it is made to
stand a godfather and sponsor. We are all Micawbers
at heart, fancying that "something" will one day
aturn up" for our good, for which we have never
striven.

An unskillful commander sometimes wins a victory;
and again a famous warrior finds himself, "after a
hundred victories, foiled." Some of the skillfulest
sea-captains lose every ship they sail in; others, less
experienced, never lose a spar. Some men's houses

LUCE AND PLUCK.

203

take fire an hour after the insurance expires; others
never insure, and never are burned out. Some of the
shrewdest men, with indefatigable industry and the
closest economy, fail to make money; others, with
apparently none of the qualities that insure success,
are continually blundering into profitable speculations,
and, Midas-like, touch nothing but it turns to gold.
Beau Brummell, with his lucky sixpence in his pocket,
wins at every gaming-table, and bags £40,000 in the
clubs of London and Newmarket.

So powerfully does fortune appear to sway the desti-
nies of men, putting a silver spoon into one man's
mouth, and a wooden one into another's, that some
of the most sagacious of men, as Cardinal Mazarin
and Rothschild, seem to have been inclined to regard
luck as the first element of worldly success; expe
rience, sagacity, energy, and enterprise as nothing, if
linked to an unlucky star. Whittington, and his cat
that proved such -a source of riches; the man who,
worn out by a painful disorder, attempted suicide, and
was cured by opening an internal imposthume; the
Persian, condemned to lose his tongue, on whom the
operation was so bunglingly performed that it merely
removed an impediment in his speech; the painter who
produced an effect he had long toiled after in vain, by
throwing his brush at the picture in a fit of rage and
despair; the musical composer, who, having exhausted
his patience in attempts to imitate on the piano a storm
at sea, accomplished the precise result by angrily ex-
tending his hands to the two extremities of the keys,
and bringing them rapidly together — all these seem to

204

LUCK AND PLUCK.

many fit types of the freaks of fortune by which some
men are enriched or made famous by their blunders,
while others, with ten times the capacity and knowl-
edge, are kept at the bottom of her wheel. Hence we
see thousands fold their arms and look with indiffer-
ence on the great play of life, keeping aloof from its
finest and therefore most arduous struggles, because
they believe that success is a matter of accident, and
that they may spend their heart's choicest blood and
affection on noble ends, yet be balked of victory,
cheated of any just returns. Really "lucky fellows"
there have always been in the world; but in a great
majority of cases they who are called such will be
found on examination to be those keen-sighted men
who have surveyed the world with a scrutinizing eye,
and who to clear and exact ideas of what is necessary
to be done unite the skill necessary to execute their
well-approved plans.

At first, in our admiration of the man who stands
upon the topmost round of the ladder of fame, we are
apt to mistake the way in which he got there. Our
eyes are weary with gazing up, and dazzled by the
brilliant light; and we fancy that God must have let
him down out of heaven for us; never thinking that he
may have clambered up, round after round, through
the mists which shroud the base of that ladder, while
all the world, in its heedlessness, was looking another
way. Then, when we come to know better, we are
content to lie prostrate at the foot of our ladder, as
Jacob slept beneath his, dreaming that they are angels
whom we see ascending, and believing they ascend by

LUCK AND PLUCK.

205.

heaven-born genius, or some miraculous way, not by
pluck.

A better solution is that which explains the phenom-
ena of eminent success by industr}^. Clearly, the indus-
trious use of ordinary tools, whether mechanical or
intellectual, will accomplish far more than the mere
possession of the most perfectly appointed tool-chest
that was ever contrived. This is especially true of the
mind, whose powers improve with use. When we
reflect how the sharp wit-blade grows keener in often
cutting, how the logic-hammer swells into a perfect
sledge in long striking, how all our mental tools gain
strength and edge in severe emplo}Tment, we shall see
that it is but a poor question to ask concerning success
in life, "What tools had you?" — that a better question
is, "How have you used your tools?"

One who thus educates himself up to success is often
contented to labor a long while in a very humble sphere.
He knows too much, indeed, to abandon one position
before his powers for a higher one are fully ripe ; for he
has observed that they who leap too rapidly from one
of life's stepping stones to another, are more likely to
lose their footing than to improve it. Very often, there-
fore, one who possesses this character grows up to com-
plete manhood before his neighbors take him out of his.
cradle. In some Western parish, in some country prac-
tice, or at . the head of some district school, he labors
quietly for years and years, gathering a secret strength
from every occurrence of his life, unnoticed, unknown^
until at last the crisis of opportunity arrives — to every
man such opportunity some time comes — and he starts

206

LUCK AND PLUCK.

forth, armed and equipped, thoroughly built from head
to foot; there is bone for strength, and stout muscle for
movement, and society around is astonished to find that
it contained such a power, and knew it not. The rise
of an individual, thus trained, is sometimes surprising
in its suddenness. To the vision of mankind around,
he seems to shoot up like a rocket; and they gaze, and
wonder, and glorify the power of genius. Whereas
he grew, grew by a slow, steady, natural process of
growth, available to all men. He grew, however, under
cover; and it was not until circumstances threw the
cover off him, that we saw to what stature he had
attained.

It is by the exercise of this forward-reaching indus-
try that men attain eminence in intellectual life. The
lives of eminent men of all nations determine, by a vote
almost overwhelming, that whatever may have been
their native powers, they did not attain their ultimate
success without the most arduous, well-directed, life-
lasting labor for self-improvement.

Idleness is death; activity is life. The worker is the
hero. Luck lies in labor. This is the end. And labor
the fruit of pluck. Luck and pluck, then, meet in
labor. Pleasure blossoms on the tree of labor. Wis-
dom is its fruit. Thrones are built on labor. Kingdoms
stand by its steady props. Homes are made by labor.
Every man of pluck will make him one and fill it with
the fruits of industry. In doing this he will find no
time to wait for, or complain of, luck.

PUUPOSE AND WILL.

207

We can never over estimate the power of purpose
and will. It takes hold of the heart of life. It spans
our whole manhood. It enters into our hopes, aims,
and prospects. It holds its scepter over our business,
our amusements, our philosophy, and religion. Its
sphere is larger than we can at first imagine.

The indomitable will, the inflexible purpose looking
for future good through present evil, have always begot
confidence and commanded success, while the opposite
qualities have as truly led to timid resolves, uncertain
councils, alternate exaltation and depression, and final
disappointment and disaster. A vacillating policy,
irresolute councils, unstable will, subordination of the
future to the present, efforts to relieve ourselves from
existing trouble without providing against its recurrence,
may bring momentary quiet, but expose us to greater
disquiet than ever hereafter. A double-minded man is
unstable in all his ways. Unstable as water, thou shalt
not excel.

When a child is learning to walk, if you can induce
the little creature to keep its eyes fixed on any point in
advance, it will generally " navigate" to that point
without capsizing; but distract its attention by word or
act from the object before it, and down goes the baby.
The rule applies to children of a larger growth. The
man who starts in life with a determination to reach a
certain position, and adheres unwaveringly to his pur-
pose, rejecting the advice of the over-cautious, and

208

PURPOSE AND WILL.

defying the auguries of the timid, rarely fails if he lives
long enough to reach the goal for which he set out.
If circumstances oppose him, he bends them to his
exigencies by the force of energetic, indomitable will.
On the other hand, he who vacillates in his course,
"yawning," as the sailors say, toward all points of the
compass, is pretty sure to become a helpless castaway
before his voyage of life is half completed. Smiles, in
his Self-Help, tells of an English carpenter who was
observed one day planing a magistrate's bench, which
he was repairing, with more than usual carefulness, and
when asked the reason replied, "Because I wish to
make it easy against the time when I come to sit upon
it myself." Singularly enough, the man actually lived
to sit upon that very bench as a magistrate.

There can be no question among philosophic observ-
ers of men and events, that fixedness of purpose is a
grand element of human success. Weathercock men
are nature's failures. They are good for nothing.

The men of action, whose names are written imper-
ishably on the page of history, were men of iron. Silky
fellows may do for intrigue, but the founders, and con-
querors, and liberators, and saviors of empires, have all
been of the warrior metal. No human being who
habitually halts between two opinions, who cannot
decide promptly, and having decided, act as if there
was no such word as fail, can ever be great. Caesar
would never have crossed the Rubicon, nor Washington
the Delaware, had they not fixed their stern gaze on
objects far beyond the perils at their feet.

Henry Ward Beecher, in a sermon, remarked: "We

PURPOSE AND WILL.

209

sec supreme purposes which men have formed running
through their whole career in this world. A young
man means to be a civil engineer. That is the thing
to which his mind is made up; not his father's mind,,
perhaps, but his. He feels his adaptation to that call-
ing, and his drawing toward it. He is young, inexpe-
rienced, forgetful, accessible to youthful sympathies.,
and is frequently drawn aside from his life purpose.
To-day he attends a pic-nic. Next week he devotes a
day to. some other excursion. Occasionally he loses a
day in consequence of fatigue caused by over action.
Thus there is a link knocked out of the chain of this
week, and a link out of the chain of that week. And
in the course of the summer he takes a whole week, or
a fortnight out of that purpose. Yet there is the thing
in his mind, whether he sleeps or wakes. If you had
asked him a month ago what he meant to be in life, he
would have replied, 4 1 mean to be a civil engineer/
And if you ask him to-day what has been the tendency
of his life, he will say, . ' I have been preparing myself
to be a civil engineer.' If he waits and does nothing,
the reason is that he wants an opportunity to carry out
his purpose. That purpose governs his course, and he-
will not engage in anything that would conflict with it.

" These generic principles in the soul are like those
great invisible laws of nature, whose effects are seen ire
the falling of the pebble-stone, in all the various changes
which natural objects undergo. When a man has
formed in his mind a great sovereign purpose, it
governs his conduct, as the law of nature governs the
operation of physical things.
14

210

PURPOSE AND WILL.

" Every man should have a mark in view, and pursue
it steadily. He should not be turned from his course
by other objects ever so attractive. Life is not long
enough for any one man to accomplish everything.
Indeed but few can at best accomplish more than one
thing well. Many, alas, very many! accomplish noth-
ing worthy. Yet there is not a man endowed with fair
or ordinary intellect or capacity but can accomplish at
least one useful, important, worthy purpose.

"But few men could ever succeed in more than one
of the learned professions. Perhaps the man never
lived who could master and become eminent in the
practice of all of them. Certainly not in them, and
also in agriculture and the mechanic arts. Not be-
cause one man was never endowed with capacity fox
any of those pursuits or callings as he might choose.
Our country, every country, abounds with men posses-
sing sufficient natural capacity for almost or quite any
pursuit they might select and pursue exclusively. But
the reason is simply because no one man has the time,
even if he have the capacity, to master and pursue
with eminent success, so many and such widely differ-
ent avocations. Indeed, man's days, at most, are so
few, and his capacity, at the highest, so small, that
never yet has he even by confining the united efforts
and energies of his lifetime at the most trivial pursuit,
much less in the deep and intricate learned professions,
attained to perfection; and he never will. How much
less, then, are the probabilities of his exhausting several,
and those perhaps the most complicated spheres of
man's activity."

PUIiPOSE AND WILL. 211

It requires purpose, will, and oneness of aim and
invincible determination to succeed.

It is will — force of purpose — that enables a man to
do or be whatever he sets his mind on being or doing.
A holy man was accustomed to say, "Whatever you
wish, that you are; for such is the force of our will,
joined to the Divine, that whatever we wish to be,
seriously, and with a true intention, that we become.
No one ardently wishes to be submissive, patient,
modest, or liberal, who does not become what he
wishes."

Will is the monarch of the mind, ruling with des-
potic, and at times with tyrannical powers. It is the
rudder of the mind, giving directions to its movements.
It is the engineer giving course and point, speed and
force to the mental machinery. It acts like a tonic
among the soul's languid powers. It is the band that
ties into a strong bundle the separate faculties of the
soul. It is the man's momentum; in a word, it is that
power by which the energy or energies of the soul are
concentrated on a given point, or in a particular direc-
tion : it fuses the faculties into one mass, so that instead
of scattering all over like grape and canister, they
spend their united force on one point. The intellect
is the legislative department, the sensibilities are the
judicial, and the will the executive.

Among the many causes of failure in life, none is
more frequent than that feebleness of the will which is
indicated by spasmodic action — by fitful effort, or lack
of persistence. Dr. Arnold, whose long experience
with youth at Rugby gave weight to his opinion,

212 PURPOSE AND WILL.

declared that "the difference between one boy and
another consists not so much in talent as in energy."
"The longer I live," says another competent judge, Sir
Thomas Fowell Buxton, "the more I am certain that
the great difference between men, between the great
and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determina-
tion, an honest purpose once fixed, and then death or
victory. This quality will do anything in the world;
and no talents, no circumstances, will make a two-leg-
ged creature a man without it." The very reputation
of being strong-willed, plucky, and indefatigable, is of
priceless value. It often cowes enemies and dispels at
the start opposition to one's undertakings which would
otherwise be formidable.

Says Shakespeare, "Our bodies are our gardens; to
the which, our souls are gardeners": so that if we will
plant nettles, or sow lettuce; sow hyssop, and weed
up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, and
distract it with many; either to have it sterile with
idleness, or manured with industry; why, the power
and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.

Where there is a will there is a way. Nothing is
impossible to him who wills. Will is the root; knowl-
edge the stem and leaves; feeling the flower.

"Where there is a will there is a way," is an old and
true saying. He who resolves upon doing a thing, by
that very resolution often scales the barriers to it, and
secures its achievement. To think we are able is
almost to be so — to determine upon attainment, is
frequently attainment itself Thus, earnest resolution
has often seemed to have about it almost a savor of

. COURAGE.

213

Omnipotence. "You can only half will," Suwarrow
would say to people who had failed. "I don't know,"
"I can't,' ' and "impossible," were words which he
detested above all others. "Learn! do! try!" he
would exclaim.

Nothing that is of real worth can be achieved with-
out courageous working. Man owes his growth chiefly
to that active striving of the will, that encounter with
difficulty, which we call effort ■, and it is astonishing to
find how often results apparently impracticable are thus
made possible. An intense anticipation itself trans-
forms possibility into reality; our desires being often
but the precursors of the things which we are capable
of performing. On the contrary, the timid and hesitat-
ing find everything impossible, chiefly because it seems
so. It is related of a young French officer that he
used to walk about his apartment exclaiming, "I will
be marshal of France and a great general." This
ardent desire was the presentiment of his success; for
he did become a distinguished commander, and he died
a marshal of France.

Courage, by keeping the senses quiet and the under-
standing clear, puts us in a condition to receive true
intelligence, to make just computations upon danger,
and pronounce rightly upon that which threatens us.

^mirage

214

COURAGE. ■>

Innocence of life, consciousness of worth, and great
expectations are the best foundations of courage.

True courage is the result of reasoning. A brave
mind is always impregnable. Resolution lies more in
the head than in the veins; and a just sense of honor
and of infamy, of duty and of religion, will carry us
further than all the force of mechanism.

To believe a business impossible is the way to make
it so. How many feasible projects have miscarried
through despondency, and been strangled in the birth
by a cowardly imagination. It is better to meet danger
than to wait for it. A ship on a lee shore stands out to>
sea in a storm to escape shipwreck. Impossibilities,
like vicious dogs, fly before him who is not afraid of
them. Should misfortune overtake, retrench — work
harder — but never fly the track — confront difficulties
with unflinching perseverance. Should you then fail,
you will be honored; but shrink, and you will be
despised. When you put your hands to a work, let
the fact of your doing so constitute the evidence that
you mean to prosecute it to the end. Stand like a
beaten anvil. It is the part of a great champion to be
stricken and conquer.

" Trouble's darkest hour
Shall not make me cower
To the spectre's power —
Never, never, never.

" Then up, my soul, and brace thee,
While the perils face thee ;
In thyself encase thee
Manfully for ever.

COURAGE.

215

" Storms may howl around thee,
Foes may hunt and hound thee :
Shall they overpower thee ?
Never, never, never."

Courage, like cowardice, is undoubtedly contagious,
but some persons are not at all liable to catch it. The
attention of restless and fickle men turns to no account;
poverty overtakes them whilst they are flying so many
different ways to escape it. What is called courage is
oftentimes nothing more than the fear of being thought
a coward. The reverence that restrains us from violat-
ing the laws of God or man is not unfrequently branded
with the name of cowardice. The Spartans had a say-
ing, that he who stood most in fear of the law generally
showed the least fear of an enemy. And we may infer
the truth of this from the reverse of the proposition, for
daily experience shows us that they who are the most
daring in a bad cause are often the most pusillanimous,
in a good one.

Plutarch says courage consists not in hazarding with-
out fear, but by being resolute in a just cause. An
officer, after a very severe battle, on being compli-
mented on standing his ground firmly, under a terrible
fire, replied, "Ah, if you knew how I was frightened,
you would compliment me more still." It is not the
stolid man, or the reckless man, who exhibits the
noblest bravery in the great battle of life. It is the
man whose nerves and conscience are all alive; who
looks before and behind ; who weighs well all the
probabilities of success or defeat, and is determined to
stand his ground. There is another fine anecdote

216

COURAGE.

apropos to this subject: A phrenologist examining the
liead of the Duke of Wellington, said, "Your grace
lias not the organ of animal courage largely developed."
"You are right," replied the great man, "and but for
my sense of duty I should have retreated in my first
fight." This first fight, in India, was one of the most
terrible on record. O, that word "duty!" What is
animal courage compared with it? Duty can create
that courage, or its equivalent, but that courage never
can create duty. The Duke of Wellington saw a man
turn pale as he marched up to a battery. "That is
a brave man," said he, "he knows his danger and
faces it."

To lead the forlorn hope in the field of courage
requires less nerve than to fight nobly and unshrink-
ingly the bloodless battle of life. To bear evil speaking
and illiterate judgment with equanimity, is the highest
bravery. It is, in fact, the repose of mental courage.

Physical courage, which despises all danger, will
make a man brave in one way; and moral courage,
which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in
another. The former would seem most necessary for
the camp, the latter for council; but to constitute a
great man, both are necessary.

No one can tell who the heroes are, and who the
cowards, until some crisis comes to put us to the test.
And no crisis puts us to the test that does not bring us
ixf alone and single-handed to face danger. It is noth-
ing to make a rush with the multitude even into the
jaws of destruction. Sheep will do that. Armies might
he picked from the gutter, and marched up to make

COURAGE.

217

food for powder. But when some crisis singles one out
from the multitude, pointing at him the particular
finger of fate, and telling him, "Stand or run," and he
faces about with steady nerve, with nobody else to
stand behind, we may be sure the hero stuff is in him.
When such a crisis comes, the true courage is just as
likely to be found in people of shrinking nerves, or in
weak and timid women, as in great burly people. It is
a moral, not a physical trait. Its seat is not in the
temperament, but the will. How courageous Peter
was, and all those square-built fishermen of the sea of
Galilee, at the Last Supper, and in the garden of Geth-
semane, where Peter drew his sword and smote the
officer! But when Christ looked down from his cross,
Whom did he see standing in that focus of Jewish rage?
None of those stout fishermen, but a young man and a
tender-hearted woman — John and Mary.

A good cause makes a courageous heart. They that
fear an overthrow are half conquered. To be valorous
is not always to be venturous. A warm heart requires
a cool head.

Though the occasions of high heroic daring seldom
occur but in the history of the great, the less obtrusive
opportunities for the exertion of private energy are
continually offering themselves. With these, domestic
scenes as much abound as does the tented field. Pain
may be as firmly endured in the lonely chamber as
amid the din of arms. Difficulties can be manfully
combatted ; misfortunes bravely sustained ; poverty
nobly supported ; disappointments courageously en-
countered. Thus courage diffuses a wide and succor-

218

LITTLE THINGS.

ing influence, and bestows energy apportioned to the
trial. It takes from calamity its dejecting quality, and
enables the soul to possess itself under every vicissitude.
It rescues the unhappy from degradation, and the feeble
from contempt.

Courage, like every other emotion, however laudable
in its pure form, may be allowed to degenerate into a
faulty extreme. Thus rashness, too often assuming the
name of courage, has no pretensions to its merit. For
rashness urges to useless and impossible efforts, and
thus produces a waste of vigor and spirit, that, properly
restrained and well directed, would have achieved deeds
worthy to be achieved. Rashness is the exuberance of
courage, and ought to be checked, as we prune off the
useless though vigorous shoots of shrubs and trees.

fettle ^kmgs*

Trifles are not to be despised. The nerve of
a tooth, not so large as the finest cambric needle,
will sometimes drive a strong man to distraction.
A musquito can make an elephant absolutely mad.
The coral rock, which causes a navy to founder,
is the work of tiny insects. The warrior that with-
stood death in a thousand forms may be killed by
an insect. For want of a nail the shoe was lost ; for
want of a shoe the horse was lost ; for want of a horse
the rider was lost. Every pea helps to fill the peck.

LITTLE THINGS.

219

Little and often fills the purse. Moments are the
golden sands of time. Every day is a little life; and
our whole life is but a day repeated; those, therefore,
that dare lose a day, are dangerously prodigal; those
that dare misspend it, desperate. Springs are little
things, but they are sources of large streams — a helm
is a little thing, but it governs the course of a ship — -
a bridle bit is a little thing, but see its use and power —
nails and pegs are little things, but they hold parts of
large buildings together — a word, a look, a frown, all
are little things, but powerful for good or evil. Think
of this, and mind the little things. Pay that little
debt — it's promise redeem.

Little acts are the elements of true greatness. They
raise life's value like the little figures over the larger
ones in arithmetic, to its highest power. They are
tests of character and disinterestedness. They are
the straws upon life's deceitful current, and show the
current's way. The heart comes all out in them.
They move on the dial of character and responsibility
significantly. They indicate the character and destiny.
They help to make the immortal man. It matters not
so much where we are as what we are. It is seldom
that acts of moral heroism are called for. Rather the
F" " heroism of life is, to do all its little duties promptly
u > dithfully.

There are no such things as trifles in the biography
of man. Drops make up the sea. Acorns cover the
earth with oaks, and the ocean with navies. Sands
make up the bar in the harbor's mouth, on which
vessels are wrecked; and little things in youth accu-

220

LITTLE THINGS.

mulate into character in age, and destiny in eternity.
All the links in that glorious chain which is in all and
around all, we can see and admire, or at least admit;
but the staple to which all is fastened, and which is the
conductor of all, is the Throne of Deity.

If you cannot be a great river, bearing great vessels
of blessings to the world, you can be a little spring by
the wayside of life, singing merrily all day and all
night, and giving a cup of cold water to every weary,
thirsty one who passes by.

Life is made up of little things. He who travels
over a continent must go step by step. He who writes
books must do it sentence by sentence. He who learns
a science must master it fact by fact, and principle after
principle. What is the happiness of our life made up
of? Little courtesies, little kindnesses, pleasant words,
genial smiles, a friendly letter, good wishes, and good
■deeds. One in a million — once in a lifetime — may do
a heroic action; but the little things that make up our
life come every day and every hour. If we make the
little events of life beautiful and good, then is the whole
life full of beauty and goodness.

There is nothing too little for so little a creature as
man. It is by studying little things that we attain the
great art of having as little misery and as much happi-
ness as possible. "If a straw," says Dryden, "can be
made the instrument of happiness, he is a wise man
who does not despise it." A very little thing makes
all the difference. You stand in the engine-room of a
steamer; you admit the steam to the cylinders, and the
paddles turn ahead; a touch of a lever, you admit the

LITTLE THINGS.

221

self-same steam to the self-same cylinders, and the
paddles turn astern. It is so, oftentimes, in the moral
world. The turning of a straw decides whether the
engines shall work forward or backward. Look to
the littles. The atomic theory is the true one. The
universe is but an infinite attrition of particles. The
grandest whole is resolvable to fractions; or, as the
ditty has it —

" Little drops of water and little grains of sand,
Fill the mighty ocean and form the solid land."

Is it not strange that, in the face of these facts, men
will neglect details? that many even consider them
beneath their notice, and, when they hear of the success
of a business man who is, perhaps, more solid than
brilliant, sneeringly say that he is "great in little
things"? Is it not the "little things" that, in the
aggregate, make up whatever is great? Is it not the
countless grains of sand that make the beach; the trees
that form the forest; the successive strata of rock that
compose the mountains; the myriads of almost imper-
ceptible stars that whiten the heavens with the milky-
way?

So with character, fortune, and all the concerns of
life — the littles combined form the great bulk. If we
look well to the disposition of these, the sum total will
be cared for. It is the minutes wasted that wound the
hours and mar the day. It is the pennies neglected
that squander the dollars. The majority of men dis-
dain littles — to many fractions are "vulgar" in more
senses than the rule implies. It is apt to be thought

'222

LITTLE THINGS.

indicative of a narrow mind and petty spirit to be
scrupulous about littles. Yet from littles have sprung
the mass of great vices and crimes. In habits, in man-
ners, in business, we have only to watch the littles, and
all will come out clear. The smallest leak, overlooked,
may sink a ship — the smallest tendency to evil thinking
or evil doing, left unguarded, may wreck character and
life. No ridicule should dissuade us from looking to
the littles. The greatest and best of men have not
been above caring for the littles — some of which have
to do with every hour and every purpose of our lives.

Often what seems a trifle, a mere nothing by itself,
in some nice situations turns the scale of fate, and rules
the most important actions. The cackling of a goose
is fabled to have saved Rome from the Gauls, and the
pain produced by a thistle to have warned a Scottish
army of the approach to the Danes; and according to
the following anecdote from Randall's "Life of Jeffer-
son,' ' it seems that flies contributed to hasten the
American independence: While the question of inde-
pendence was before Congress, it had its meeting near
a livery stable. Its members wore short breeches and
silk stockings, and, with handkerchief in hand, they
were diligently employed in lashing the flies from their
legs. So very vexatious was this annoyance, and to so
great an impatience did it arouse the sufferers, that it
hastened, if it did not aid in inducing them to promptly
affix their signatures to the great document which gave
birth to an empire republic !

Discoveries are made mostly by little things. The art
of printing owes its origin to rude impressions (forthe

LITTLE THINGS.

223

amusement of children) from letters carved on the
bark of a beech tree. It was a slight matter which
thousands would have passed over with neglect. Gun-
powder was discovered from the falling of a spark on
some material mixed in a mortar.

The stupendous results of the steam-engine may all be
attributed to an individual observing steam issuing from a
bottle just emptied and placed casually close to a fire.
He plunged the bottle's neck into cold water and was
intelligent enough to notice the instantaneous rush
which ensued from this simple condensing apparatus.
Electricity was discovered by a person observing that
a piece of rubbed glass, or some similar substance,
attracted small bits of paper, etc.

Galvanism again owes its origin to Madame Galvani's
noticing the contraction of the muscles of a skinned
frog which was accidentally touched by a person at the
moment of the professor, her husband, taking an electric
spark from a machine. He followed up the hint by
experiments.

Pendulum clocks were invented from Galileo's ob-
serving the lamp in a church swinging to and fro. The
telescope we owe to some children of a spectacle-maker
placing two or more pairs of spectacles before each other
and looking through them at a distant object. The
glimpse thus afforded was followed up by older heads.

The barometer originated in the circumstance of a
pump which had been fixed higher than usual above
the surface of a well. A sagacious observer hence
deducted the pressure of the atmosphere and tried
quicksilver.

224

LITTLE THINGS.

The Argand lamp was invented by one of the
brothers of that name having remarked that a tube
held by chance over a candle caused it to burn with a
bright flame.

Sedulous attention and painstaking industry always
mark the true worker. The greatest men are not
those who "despise the day of small things," but those
who improve them the most carefully. Michael An-
gelo was one day explaining to a visitor at his studio
what he had been doing at a statue since his previous
visit. "I have retouched this part — polished that —
softened this feature — brought out that muscle — given
some expression to this lip, and more energy to that
limb." "But these are trifles," remarked the visitor
"It may be so," replied the sculptor, "but recollect
that trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle."
So it was said of Nicholas Poissin, the painter, that
the rule of his conduct was, that "whatever was worth
doing at all was worth doing well;" and when asked,,
late in life, by what means he had gained so high a
reputation among the painters of Italy, he emphatically
answered, "Because I have neglected nothing."

Many of the most distinguished names in the world's
history were nearly half a century in attracting the
admiring notice of mankind; as witness Cromwell and
Cavour, and Bismarck and Palmerston, and the elder
Beecher. But their star will never die; their works,
their influence on the age in which they lived, will be
perpetuated to remote generations. This should be
encouragement to all the plodders, for their time may
come.

LITTLE THINGS.

225

It is the intelligent eye of the careful observer which
gives apparently trivial phenomena their value. So
trifling a matter as the sight of sea-weed floating past
his ship, enabled Columbus to quell the mutiny which
arose among his sailors at not discovering land, and
to assure them that the eagerly sought New World
was not far off. There is nothing so small that it
should remain forgotten; and no fact, however trivial,
but may prove useful in some way or other if carefully
interpreted. Who could have imagined that the famous
"chalk-cliffs of Albion" had been built up by tiny in-
sects— detected ' only by the help of the microscope —
of the same order of creatures that have gemmed the
sea with islands of coral! And who that contemplates
such extraordinary results, arising from infinitely minute
operations, will venture to question the power of little
things ?

It is the close observation of little things which is
the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and
in every pursuit in life. Human knowledge is but an
accumulation of small facts, made by successive gen-
erations of men, the little bits of knowledge and expe-
rience carefully treasured up by them growing at length
into a mighty pyramid. Though many of these facts
and observations seemed in the first instance to have
but slight significance, they are all found to have their
eventual uses, and to fit into their proper places. Even
many speculations seemingly remote turn out to be the
basis of results the most obviously practical. In the
case of the conic sections discovered by Apolonius

Pergceus, twenty centuries elapsed before they were
15

226

LITTLE THINGS.

made the basis of astronomy — a science which enables
the modern navigator to steer his way through un-
known seas, and traces for him in the heavens an uner-
ring path to his appointed haven. And had not math-
ematics toiled for so long, and, to uninstructed observers,
apparently so fruitlessly, over the abstract relations of
lines and surfaces, it is probable that but few of our
mechanical inventions would have seen the light.

When Franklin made his discovery of the identity
of lightning and electricity, it was sneered at, and peo-
ple asked, "Of what use is it?" to which his apt reply
was, "What is the use of a child? It may become a
man!" When Galvani discovered that a frog's leg
twitched when placed in contact with different metals,
it. could scarcely have been imagined that so apparently
insignificant a fact could have led to important results.
Yet therein lay the germ of the electric telegraph,
which binds the intelligence of continents together, and
doubtless before many years elapse will "put a girdle
round the globe." So, too, little bits of stone and
fossil, dug out of the earth, intelligently interpreted,
have issued in the science of geology and the prac-
tical operations of mining, in which large capitals are
invested and vast numbers of persons profitably em-
ployed.

ECONOMY,

227

Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty, and
of ease; and the beauteous sister of temperance, of
cheerfulness, and health : and profuseness is a cruel and
crazy demon, that gradually involves her followers in
dependence and debt; that is, fetters them with "irons
that enter into their souls.1'

A sound economy is a sound understanding brought
into action. It is calculation realized ; it is the doctrine
of proportion educed to practice. It is foreseeing con-
tingencies and providing against them. Economy is
one of three sisters of whom the other and less reputa-
ble two are avarice and prodigality. She alone keeps
the straight and safe path, while avarice sneers at her as
profuse, and prodigality scorns at her as penurious. To
the poor she is indispensable; to those of moderate
means she is found the representative of wisdom. The
loose change which many young men throw away
uselessly, and sometimes even worse, would often form
the basis of fortune and independence. But when it is
so recklessly squandered it becomes the worst enemy
to the young man. He will soon find that he has
bought nothing but expensive habits, and perhaps a
ruined character. Economy, joined to industry and
sobriety is a better outfit to business than a dowery.

We don't like stinginess, we don't like economy,
when it comes down to rags and starvation. We have
no sympathy with the notion that the poor man should
hitch himself to a post and stand still, while the rest of

228

ECONOMY.

the world moves forward. It is no man's duty to deny
himself every amusement, every recreation, every com-
fort, that he may get rich. It is no man's duty to make
an iceberg of himself, to shut his eyes and ears to the
sufferings of his fellows, and to deny himself the enjoy-
ment that results from generous actions, merely that he
may hoard wealth for his heirs to quarrel about. But
there is an economy which is every man's duty, and
which is especially commendable in the man who strug-
gles with poverty — an economy which is consistent
with happiness, and which must be practiced if the poor
man would secure independence. It is almost every
man's privilege, and it becomes his duty, to live within
his means; not to, but within them. This practice is
of the very essence of honesty. For if a man does
not manage honestly to live within his own means he
must necessarily be living dishonestly upon the means
of some one else. If your means do not suit your ends,
pursue those ends which suit your means. Men are
ruined not by what they really want, but by what they
think they want. Therefore they should never go
abroad in search of their wants; if they be real wants
they will come home in search of them; for if they buy
what they do not want, they will soon want what they
cannot buy.

Wealth does not make the man, we admit, and
should never be taken into the account in our judgment
of men; but competence should always be secured,,
when it can be, by the practice of economy and self-
denial only to a tolerable extent. It should be secured,
not so much for others to look upon, or to raise us in

ECONOMY.

229

the estimation of others, as to secure the consciousness
of independence, and the constant satisfaction which is
derived from its acquirement and possession.

Simple industry and thrift will go far toward making
any person of ordinary working faculty comparatively
independent in his means. Almost every working man
may be so, provided he will carefully husband his
resources and watch the little outlets of useless expend-
iture. A penny is a very small matter, yet the com-
fort of thousands of families depends upon the proper
saving and spending of pennies. If a man allows the
little pennies, the result of his hard work, to slip out of
his fingers — some to the beer-shop, some this way and
some that — he will find that his life is little raised
above one of mere animal drudgery. On the other
hand, if he take care of the pennies; putting some
weekly into a benefit society or an insurance fund,
others into a savings-bank, and confiding the rest to his
wife to be carefully laid out, with a view to the com-
fortable maintenance and education of his family, he
will soon find that his attention to small matters will
abundantly repay him, in increasing means, growing
comfort at home, and a mind comparatively free from
fears as to the future. If a working man have high
ambition and possess richness in spirit — a kind of
wealth which far transcends all mere worldly posses-
sions— he may not only help himself, but be a profitable
helper of others in his path through life.

When one is blessed with good sense, and fair oppor-
tunities, this spirit of economy is one of the most ben-
eficial of all secular gifts, and takes high rank among

230

ECONOMY.

the minor virtues. It is by this mysterious power that
the loaf is multiplied, that using does not waste, that
little becomes much, that scattered fragments grow to
unity, and that out of nothing, or next to nothing,
comes the miracle of something! Economy is not
merely saving, still less, parsimony. It is foresight
and arrangement. It is insight and combination. It
is a subtile philosophy of things by which new uses,,
new compositions are discovered. It causes inert
things to labor, useless things to serve our necessities^
perishing things to renew their vigor, and all things to
exert themselves - for human comfort. Economy is
generalship in little things. We know men who live
better on a thousand dollars a year than others upon
five thousand. We know very poor persons who bear
about with them in everything a sense of fitness and
nice arrangement, which make their life artistic. There
are day-laborers who go home to more real comfort of
neatness, arrangement, and prosperity, in their single
snug room, than is found in the lordly dwellings of
many millionaires. And blessings be on their good
angel of economy, which wastes nothing, and yet is
not sordid in saving; that lavishes nothing, and is not
parsimonious in giving; that spreads out a little with
the blessings of taste upon it, which, if it does not mul-
tiply the provision, more than makes it up in the pleas*
ure given. Let no man despise economy.

There is no virtue so unduly appreciated as economy7
nor is there one more truly worthy of estimation ; a
neglect of economy eventually leads to every misery
of poverty and degradation, not unfrequently to every

ECONOMY.

231

variety of error and of crime. Dr. Johnson asserted,
"that where there was no prudence, there was no vir-
tue." Of all the maxims pronounced by that great
moralist, perhaps no one was more just or more
instructive. Even in that branch of prudence that
directs us to take cognizance of our pecuniary affairs,
the propriety of this aphorism is very striking.

The progress of civilization has incurred a necessity
of barter and exchange as the means of subsistence.
Thus wealth, as the medium of acquiring all the com-
forts and all the luxuries of life, has obtained high con-
sideration among mankind. Philosophers may there-
fore scoff as much as they please at the value placed
upon riches, but they will never succeed in lessening
the desire for their possession. When considered as
the means of enjoying existence in comfort, it must be
seen that it is only by the judicious expenditure of
wealth, that this end can be obtained. Pass a few
years, and the prodigal is pennyless. How few, under
such circumstances, but, directly or indirectly, are
guilty of injustice and cruelty. Debts unpaid, friends
deceived, kindred deprived of a rightful inheritance —
such are the consequences of profusion, and are not
such positive acts of injustice and cruelty? Let those,
therefore, who indignantly stigmatize the miser as a
pest to society, and in a fancied honorable horror of
miserly meanness are for showing their nobler spirit
by running into an opposite extreme, reflect, that
though different the means, how similar the results
of profusion; how exactly conducting to the same
crimes and miseries. The taste of the age is so much

232

FARM LIFE.

more friendly to prodigality; the lavish expenditure
of wealth, by conducing to the gratification of society,
is so often unduly applauded, that it is an extreme
much more likely to be rushed upon. But when the
real consequences of its indulgence are fairly and dis-
passionately surveyed, its true deformity will be quickly
perceived.

In short, econonry appears to induce the exertion of
almost every laudable emotion; a strict regard to hon-
esty; a laudable spirit of independence; a judicious
prudence in providing for the wants; a steady benev-
olence in preparing for the claims of the future. Really
we seem to have run the circle of the virtues; justice
and disinterestedness, honesty, independence, prudence,
and benevolence.

ffsmn %%%%»

Agriculture is the greatest among the arts, for it
is first in supplying our necessities. It is the mother
and nurse of all other arts. It favors and strengthens
population; it creates and maintains manufactures, gives
employment to navigation and materials to commerce.
It animates every species of industry, and opens to
nations the surest channels of opulence. It is also the
strongest bond of well regulated society, "the surest
basis of internal peace, the natural associate of good
morals.

FARM LIFE.

233

We ought to count among the benefits of agriculture
the charm which the practice of it communicates to a
country life. That charm which has made the country,
in our own view, the retreat of the hero, the asylum of
the sage, and the temple of the historic muse. The
strong desire, the longing after the country, with which
we find the bulk of mankind to be penetrated, points to
it as the chosen abode of sublunary bliss. The sweet
occupations of culture, with her varied products and
attendant enjoyments are, at least, a relief from the
stifling atmosphere of the city, the monotony of sub-
divided employments, the anxious uncertainty of com-
merce, the vexations of ambition so often disappointed,
of self-love so often mortified, of factitious pleasuies
and unsubstantial vanities.

Health, the first and best of all the blessings of life,
is preserved and fortified by the practice of agriculture.
That state of well-being which we feel and cannot
define; that self-satisfied disposition which depends, per-
haps, on the perfect equilibrium and easy play of vital
forces, turns the slightest acts to pleasure, and makes
every exertion of our faculties a source of enjoyment;
this inestimable state of our bodily functions is most
vigorous in the country, and if lost elsewhere, it is in
the country we expect to recover it.

" In ancient times, the sacred plow employ'd
The kings, and awful fathers of mankind :
And some, with whom compared, your insect tribes
Are but the beings of a summer's day,
Have held the scale of empire, ruled the storm
Of mighty war, then, with unwearied hand,

234

FARM LIFE.

Disdaining little delicacies, seized
The plow and greatly independent lived."

— Thomson's Seasons,

We deplore the disposition of young men to get
away from their farm homes to our large cities, where
they are subject to difficulties and temptations, which,
but too often, they fail to overcome.

Depend upon it, if you would hold your sons and
brothers back from roaming away into the perilous
centers, you must steadily make three attempts — to
abate the taskwork of farming, to raise maximum crops
and profits, and to surround your work with the exhil-
aration of intellectual progress. You must elevate the
whole spirit of your vocation for your vocation's sake,
till no other can outstrip it in what most adorns and
strengthens a civilized state.

We have long observed, and with unfeigned regret,
the growing tendency of young men and lads, yet
early in their teens, to abandon the healthful and
ennobling cares of the farm for the dangerous excite-
ments and vicissitudes of city life and trade. Delightful
firesides and friendly circles in the quiet rural districts
are every day sacrificed to this lamentable mania of the
times. Young men, favored with every comfort of life,,
and not overworked, fancy that they may do far better
than "to guide the ox or turn the stubborn glebe;'1 and
with the merest trifle of consideration their hands are
withdrawn from the implements of agriculture and
given to the office or shop-work of the city, which gen-
erally proves vastly less agreeable or profitable than

FAlUf LIFE.

235

they had (in their inexcusable thoughtlessness) antici-
pated. Disappointed and chagrined, they faint under
the advance of

" Nimble mischance, that comes so swift of foot,"

and where one is enabled to withstand the sweeping
tide of temptation, five are submerged in its angry
waves and hurried on to ruin. Every year finds hun-
dreds, ay, thousands, of such victims, irrecoverably
allied to the fallen and vicious of every class, from the
smooth-tongued parlor gambler and rake, to the more
degraded, if not more despicable, " Bowery Boy" and
"Dead Rabbit," while the prison doors, and worse, the
gates of hell, close on many " lost ones " who had been
saved but for the foolish desertion of home and true
friends. It has been well said that "for a young man
of unstable habits and without religious principles, there
is no place where he will be so soon ruined as in a large
city."

Parents throughout the country have not failed to
realize this startling truth, and to sorely mourn the
strange inclination of their sons to encounter the fascin-
ating snares and pitfalls of city residence and fashion.
In brief, let the country lad be as well educated for the
farm as his city cousin is for the bar, or the counting-
room. And by all possible means let the farmer be led
to properly estimate his high and honorable position in
the community "Ever remember," writes Goldthwait,
"that for health and substantial wealth, for rare oppor-
tunities for self-improvement, for long life and real
independence, farming is the best business in the

236

FARM LIFE.

world." History tells of one who was called from the
plow to the palace, from the farm to the forum; and
when he had silenced the angry tumults of a State
resumed again the quiet duties of a husbandman. Of
whose resting-place did Halleck write these beautiful
lines ?

" Such graves as his are pilgrim- shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined —
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind."

It was Burns, the plow-boy, afterward the national
bard of Scotland. And Burns himself has left evidence
that he composed some of the rarest gems of his poetry
while engaged in rural pursuits.

It would require volumes to enumerate the noble men
who have imperishably recorded their exalted apprecia-
tion of rural life and enterprise. Every age has aug
mented the illustrious number. Our own immortal
Washington was ever more enamored of the sickle
than the sword, and unhesitatingly pronounced agricul-
ture "the most healthy, the most useful, and the most
noble employment of man."

When we walk abroad in nature, we go not as artists
to study her scenes, but as her children to rejoice in her
beauty. The breath of the air, the blue of the un-
clouded sky, the shining sun, and the green softness of
the unflowered turf beneath our feet, are all that we
require to make us feel that we are transported into a
region of delights. We breathe and tread in a pure
untroubled world, and the fresh clear delight that

FARM LIFE.

breathes round our senses seems to bathe our spirits in
the innocence of nature. It is not that we have prized
a solitude which secludes us from the world of life; but
the aspects on which we look breathe a spirit ; the
characters we read speak a language which, mysterious
and obscurely intelligible as they are, draw us on with
an eager and undefined desire. In shapes and sounds
of fear; in naked crags, gulfs, precipices, torrents that
have rage without beauty, desolate places; there is to
that temper of mind and attractive power. All speak
in some way to the spirit, and raise up in it new and
hidden emotion, which, even when mingled with pain,
it. is glad to feel ; for such emotion makes discovery to'
it of its own nature, and the interest it feels so strongly
springs up from and returns into itself.

Of all. occupations, that of agriculture is best calcu-
lated to induce love of country, and rivet it firmly on
the heart. No profession is more honorable, none as
conducive to health, peace, tranquillity, and happiness.
More independent than any other calling, it is calcu-
lated to produce an innate love of liberty. The farmer
stands upon a lofty eminence, and looks upon the bustle
of cities, the intricacies of mechanism, the din of com-
merce, and brain confusing, body killing literature,,
with feelings of personal freedom, peculiarly his own.
He delights in the prosperity of the city as his market
place, acknowledges the usefulness of the mechanic,
admires the enterprise of the commercial man, and
rejoices in the benefits that flow from the untiring
investigations and developments of science; then turns

238

SUCCESS.

his thoughts to the pristine quiet of his agrarian do-
main, and covets not the fame that accumulates around
the other professions.

Twenty clerks in a store; twenty hands in a print-
ing office; twenty apprentices in a ship}^ard; twenty
young men in a village — all want to get on in the
world, and expect to succeed. One of the clerks will
become a partner and make a fortune; one of the com-
positors will own a newspaper and become an influential
citizen; one of the apprentices will become a master
builder; one of the young villagers will get a hand-
some farm and live like a patriarch — but which one is
the lucky individual? Lucky! there is no luck about
it. The thing is almost as certain as the Rule of Three.
The young fellow who will distance his competitors is
he who masters his business, who preserves his integ-
rity, who lives cleanly and purely, who devotes his
leisure hours to the acquisition of knowledge, who never
gets into debt, who gains friends by deserving them,
and who saves his spare money. There are some ways
to fortune shorter than this old dusty highway — but
the staunch men of the community, the men who
achieve something really worth having, good fortune
and serene old age, all go on in this road.

THE BSEPA RT PRE.

FOR THE ROVA1, PATH OF LIFE

SUCCESS.

239

We hear a great deal about "good luck" and abad
luck." If a person has prospered in business, he is
said to have had "good luck." If he has failed, he
has had "bad luck." If he has been sick, good or
bad luck is said to have visited him, accordingly as
he got well or died. Or, if he has remained in
good health, while others have been attacked by
some epidemic disease, he has had the "good luck"
to escape that with which others have had the "bad
luck " to be seized. Good or bad luck is, in most cases,
but a synonym for good or bad judgment. The pru-
dent, the considerate, and the circumspect seldom com-
plain of ill luck.

We do not know anything which more fascinates youth
than what, for want of a better word, we may call
brilliancy. Gradually, however, this peculiar kind of
estimation changes very much. It is no longer those
who are brilliant, those who affect to do the most and
the best work with the least apparent pains and trouble,
whom we are most inclined to admire. We eventually
come to admire labor, and to respect it the more, the
more openly it is proclaimed by the laborious man to
be the cause of his success, if he has any success to
boast of.

A great moral safeguard is habits of industry. This
promotes our happiness; and so leaves no cravings for
those vices which lead on and down to sin and its untold
miseries. Industry conducts to prosperity. Fortunes
may, it is true, be won in a day; but they may also be
lost in a day. It is only the hand of the diligent that
makes one permanently rich. The late Mr. Ticknor,

240

SUCCESS.

of Boston, a model merchant and publisher, in his last
hours spoke of the value of a steady pursuit of one's
legitimate business. He commented on the insane
traffic in gold at that moment, as ruinous to the coun-
try and the parties engaged in it. "The pathway of
its track," said he, "is strewn with wrecks of men and
fortunes; but few have failed of success who were
honest, earnest, and patient." He attributed his own
success to his clinging to his resolution to avoid all spec-
ulations, and steadily pursuing the business of his
choice. He had been bred to the trade of a broker;
but thought it as dangerous as the lottery and dice.
And no young man could fail to be warned by him,
who had seen the frenzy that comes over the "Brokers*
Board." "A Babel of conflicting sounds — a hot oven
of excitement" is that board; it is amoral storm which
few can withstand long. How much wiser is he who
keeps out of this whirlpool, content with an honest
calling and reasonable gains.

Who are the successful men? They are those who
when boys were compelled to work either to help them-
selves or their parents, and who when a little older were
under the stern necessity of doing more than their legit-
imate share of labor ; who as young men had their wits
sharpened by having to devise ways and means of
making their time more available than it would be
under ordinary circumstances. Hence in reading the
lives of eminent men who have greatly distinguished
themselves, we find their youth passed in self-denials
of food, sleep, rest, and recreation. They sat up late,
rose early, to the performance of imperative duties,

SUCCESS.

241

doing by daylight the work of one man, and by night
that of another. Said a gentleman, the other day, now
a private banker of high integrity, and who started in
life without a dollar, "For years I was in my place
of business by sunrise, and often did not leave it for
fifteen or eighteen hours." Let not, then, any youth
be discouraged if he has to make his own living, or
even to support a widowed mother, or sick sister, or
unfortunate relative; for this has been the road to em-
inence of many a proud name. This is the path which
printers and teachers have often trod — thorny enough
at times, at others so beset with obstacles as to be
almost impassable: but the way was cleared, sunshine
came, success followed — then the glory and renown.

The secret of one's success or failure in nearly every
enterprise is usually contained in answer to the ques-
tion: How earnest is he? Success is the child of con-
fidence and perseverance. The talent of success is
simply doing what you can do well, and doing well
whatever you do — without a thought of fame. Fame
never comes because it is craved. Success is the best
test of capacity. Success is not always a proper crite-
rion for judging a man's character. It is certain that
success naturally confirms us in a favorable opinion of
ourselves. Success in life consists in the proper and
harmonious development of those faculties which God
has given us^

Be thrifty that you may have wherewith to be chari-
table. He that labors and thrives spins gold.

We are familiar with people who whine continually
at fate. To believe them, never was a lot so hard as
16

242

SUCCESS..

theirs; yet those who know their history will generally
tell you that their life has been but one long tale of
opportunities disregarded, or misfortunes otherwise
deserved. Perhaps they were born poor. In this case
they hate the rich, and have always hated them, but
without ever having emulated their prudence or energy.
Perhaps they have seen their rivals more favored by
accident. In this event they forgot how many have
been less lucky than themselves; so they squandered
their little, because, as they say, they cannot save as
much as others. Irritated at life, they grow old pre-
maturely. Dissatisfied with everything, they never
permit themselves to be happy. Because they are not
born at the top of the wheel of fortune, they refuse to
take hold of the spoke as the latter comes around, but
lie stubborn to the dirt, crying like spoiled children,
neither doing anything themselves, nor permitting oth-
ers to do it for them.

Some men make a mistake in marrying. They do
not in this matter either begin right. Have they their
fortunes still to make? Too often, instead of seeking
one who would be a helpmate in the true sense of the
term, they unite themselves to a giddy, improvident
creature, with nothing to recommend her but the face
of a doll and a few showy accomplishments. Such a
wife, they discover too late, neither makes home happy
nor helps to increase her husband's means. At first,
thriftless, extravagant and careless, she gradually be-
comes cross and reproachful, and while she envies
other women, and reproaches her husband because he
cannot afford to maintain her like them, is really the

SUCCESS.

243

principal cause of his ill fortune. The selection of a
proper companion is one of the most important concerns
of life. A well-assorted marriage assists, instead of
retarding, a rnan's prosperity. Select a sensible, agree-
able, amiable woman, and you will have secured a prize
"better than riches." If you do otherwise, then, alas
for you!

Treat every one with respect and civility. ''Every-
thing is gained, and nothing lost, by courtesy." "Good
manners insure success." Never anticipate wealth
from any other source than labor. "He who waits for
dead men's shoes may have to go a long time bare
foot." And above all, "Nil desfierandum" for "Heaven
helps those who help themselves." If you implicitly
follow these precepts, nothing can hinder you from
accumulating. Let the business of everybody else
alone, and attend to your own; don't buy what you
don't want; use every hour to advantage, and study
to make even leisure hours useful; think twice before
you throw away a shilling; remember you will have
another to make for it; find recreation in your own
business ; buy low, sell fair, and take care of the profits ;
look over your books regularly, and, if you find an
error, trace it out; should a stroke of misfortune come
over your trade, retrench, work harder, but never fly
the track; confront difficulties with unceasing perse-
verance, and they will disappear at last; though you
should fail in the struggle, you will be honored; but
shrink from the task and you will be despised.

Engage in one kind of business only, and stick to it
faithfully until you succeed, or until your experience

244 success.

shows that you should abandon it. A constant ham.
mering on one nail will generally drive it home at last,
so that it can be clinched. When a man's undivided
attention is centered on one object, his mind will con-
stantly be suggesting improvements of value, which
would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen
different subjects at once. Many a fortune has slipped
through a man's fingers because he was engaging in
too many occupations at a time. There is good sense
in the old caution against having too many irons in the
fire at once.

"At thy first entrance upon thy estate," once said a
wise man, "keep a low sail, that thou mayst rise with
honor; thou canst not decline without shame; he that
begins where his father ends, will end where his father
began." An English judge being asked what con-
tributed most to success at the bar, replied, "Some
succeed by great talent, some by the influence of friends,
some by a miracle, but the majority by commencing
without a shilling.''''

Everywhere in human experience, as frequently in
nature, hardship is the vestibule of the highest success.
That magnificent oak was detained twenty years in its
upward growth while its roots took a great turn around
a boulder by which the tree was anchored to withstand
the storms of centuries.

In our intercourse with the world a cautious circum-
spection is of great advantage. Slowness of belief, and
a proper distrust, are essential to success. The cred-
ulous and confiding are ever the dupes of knaves and
imposters. Ask those who have lost their property

SUCCESS.

245

how it happened, and you will find in most cases it has
been owing to misplaced confidence. One has lost by
endorsing; another by crediting; another by false repre-
sentations; all of which a little more foresight and a
little more distrust would have prevented. In the
affairs of this world men are not saved by faith, but by
the want of it.

They who are eminently successful in business, or
who achieve greatness, or even notoriety in any pur-
suit, must expect to make enemies. Whoever becomes
distinguished is sure to be a mark for the malicious
spite of those who, not deserving success themselves,
are galled by the merited triumph of the more worthy.
Moreover, the opposition which originates in such
despicable motives, is sure to be of the most unscrupu-
lous character; hesitating at no iniquity, descending to
the shabbiest littleness. Opposition, if it be honest and
manly, is not in itself undesirable. It is the whetstone
by which a highly tempered nature is polished and
sharpened. He that has never known adversity, is but
half acquainted with others or with himself. Constant
success shows us but one side of the world. For, as it
surrounds us with friends, who will tell us only our
merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone
we can learn our defects.

246

INDUSTRY.

Our success in life generally bears a direct propor-
tion to the exertions we make, and if we aim at nothing
we shall certainly achieve nothing. By the remission
of labor and energy, it often happens that poverty and
contempt, disaster and defeat, steal a march upon pros-
perity and honor, and overwhelm us with reverses and
shame.

A very important principle in the business of money-
getting, is industry — persevering, indefatigable attention
to business. Persevering diligence is the philosopher's
stone, which turns everything to gold. Constant, regu-
lar, habitual, and systematic application to business,
must, in time, if properly directed, produce great results.
It must lead to wealth, with the same certainty that
poverty follows in the train of idleness and inattention.

It has been said that the best cure for hard times is
to cheat the doctor by being temperate; the lawyer, by
keeping out of debt ; the demagogue, by voting for
honest men; and poverty, by being industrious.

To industry, guided by reasonable intelligence and
economy, every people can look with certainty as an
unfailing source of temporal prosperity. Whatever is
useful or beautiful in art, science, or other human
attainment, has come from industry. In the humblest
pursuits, industry may be accompanied by the noblest
intelligence, so that respect, place and power are open
to its humblest honest practicer. Let no man spurn
industry as his temporal shield; it is the safest and

INDUSTRY.

247

surest he can buckle to his arm, and with it he may
defy the want and poverty which, more than everything
else, destroy the independence of man.

Honorable industry always travels the same road
with enjoyment and duty; and progress is altogether
impossible without it. The idle pass through life leav-
ing as little trace of their existence as foam upon the
water, or smoke upon the air; whereas the industrious
stamp their character upon their age, and influence not
only their own but all succeeding generations. Labor
is the best test of the energies of men, and furnishes an
admirable training for practical wisdom.

Practical industry, wisely and vigorously applied,
never fails of success. It carries a man onward and
upward, brings out his individual character, and power-
fully stimulates the action of others. All may not rise
equally, yet each, on the whole, very much according
to his deserts. "Though all cannot live on the piazza,"
as the Tuscan proverb has it, "every one may feel the
sun."

Industry is the heir of fortune; the companion of
honesty and honor; the beauteous sister of temperance,
health and ease — one of the noble virtues which links
with perfection.

Industry has a physical blessing; limbs strengthened
by exercise, and sinews braced by exertion; every
organ performing its legitimate duty, and kept in its
appointed office ; the blood circulated by motion, and
the joints pliant from use ; disease repelled by internal
vigor ; appetite created by the calls of increasing
strength ; rest rendered welcome by previous labor ;

248

INDUSTRY.

sleep become acceptable after busy working. The
habit, free from the petty ailments entailed by sluggish-
ness, no longer falls a prey to peevishness and irritation,,
and time employed, not wasted in murmurs and discon-
tent. The temper, less tried by bodily infirmity and
secret upbraidings, acquires equanimity. The spirits,
unharrassed by petty pains and plagues, rise to cheer-
fulness. The faculties, unimpaired by disease, un-
blunted by disuse, more vigorously expand. The whole
man, active, useful, and happy, is enabled to resist the
approaches of infirmity, sickness, and sorrow; to enjoy
a vigorous old age, and to drop after a brief struggle
his mortal frame, to soar with improved powers into a
state of improved being. While in idleness, the dis-
ordered frame, gradually sickening, oppresses the vital
powers. The mind, weakened and stuepfied, imbibes
wild or gloomy ideas; the better faculties are crushed
and curbed, and the whole man at last sinks beneath
the undermining mischiefs of insidious sloth.

Is this a wretched picture? Whilst we feel that
though it is so, it is also a true one, let us gratefully
remember, that such a state is not inevitable, but that
it is one incurred from choice, and produced by volun-
tary permission. Reverse the picture, extirpate sloth,
and in its place introduce activity, and how mighty is
the difference? The wand of Harlequin could never
produce a more striking change.

In vain has nature thrown obstacles and impediments
in the way of man. He surmounts every difficulty
interposed between his energy and his enterprise. Over
seas and mountains his course is unchecked; he directs

HONESTY.

249

the lightning's wings, and almost annihilates space and
time. Oceans, rivers, and deserts are explored; hills
are leveled, and the rugged places made smooth. " On
the hardest adamant some footprint of us is stamped
in." The soil teems with fertility, and under the cun-
ning and diligent hand of his taste and skill, the whole
earth is beautified and improved.

The stimulus of a painful necessity urges man to
accomplish more than his necessities require, and the
world is filled with monuments and memorials of his
industry, his zeal, his patient labor, his masterly spirit,
and his indomitable perseverance.

" All is the gift of industry : whate'er
Exalts, embellishes, and renders life
Delightful."

The first step toward greatness is to be honest,
says the proverb; but the proverb fails to state the
case strong enough. Honesty is not only the first
step toward greatness — it is greatness itself.

It is with honesty in one particular as with wealth;
those that have the thing care less about the credit of
it than those that have it not. What passes as open-
faced honesty is often masked malignity. He who
saith there is no such thing as an honest man, you may
be sure is himself a knave. When any one complains,

250

HONESTY.

as Diogenes did, that he has to hunt the street with
candles at noon-day to find an honest man, we are apt
to think that his nearest neighbor would have quite as
much difficulty as himself in making the discovery. If
you think there isn't an honest man living, you had
better, for appearance sake, put off saying it until you
are dead yourself. Honesty is the best policy, but
those who do honest things merely because they think
it good policy, are not honest. No man has ever been
too honest. Cicero believed that nothing is useful that
is not honest. He that walketh uprightly, walketh
surely; but he that perverteth his ways shall be known.
There is an alchemy in a high heart which transmutes
other things to its own quality.

The truth of the good old maxim, that "Honesty is
the best policy," is upheld by the dairy experience of
life ; uprightness and integrity being found as successful
in business as in everything else. As Hugh Miller's
worthy uncle used to advise him, "In all your dealings
give your neighbor the cast of the bank — ' good meas-
ure, heaped up, and running over' — and you will not
lose by it in the end."

Honesty ia the best policy. But no man can be
upright, amid the various temptations of life, unless
he is honest for the right's sake. You should not be
honest from the low motive of policy, but because you
feel the better for being honest. The latter will hold
you fast, let the element set as it will, let storms blow
ever so fiercely; the former is but a cable of pack-
thread, which will snap apart. In the long run, charac-
ter is better than capital. Most of the great American

HONESTY.

251

merchants, whose revenues outrank those of princesr
owe their colossal fortunes principally to a character
for integrity and ability. Lay the foundations of a
character broad and deep. Build them on a rock,
and not on sand. The rains may then descend, the
floods rise and the winds blow, but your house will
stand. But, establish a character for loose dealings,
and lo! some great tempest will sweep it away.

The religious tradesman complains that his honesty
is a hindrance to his success; that the tide of custom
pours into the doors of his less scrupulous neighbors in
the same street, while he himself waits for hours idle.
My brother, do you think that God is going to reward
honor, integrity and highmindedness with this world's
coin? Do you fancy that he will pay spiritual excel-
lence with plenty of custom? Now consider the price
thac man has paid for his success. Perhaps mental
degradation and inward dishonor. His advertisements
are all deceptive; his treatment of his workmen tyran-
nical; his cheap prices made possible by inferior articles.
Sow that man's seed, and you will reap that man's
harvest. Cheat, lie, advertise, be unscrupulous in your
assertions, custom will come to you; but if the price is
too dear, let him have his harvest, and take yours.
Yours is a clear conscience, a pure mind, rectitude
within and without. Will you part with that for his?
Then why do you complain? He has paid his price;
you do not choose to pay it.

Some, in their passion for sudden accumulation, prac-
tice secret frauds, and imagine there is no harm in its

252

HONESTY.

•so they he not detected. But in vain will they cover
up their transgressions; for God sees it to the bottom;
and let them not hope to keep it always from man.
The birds of the air sometimes carry the tale abroad.
In the long web of events, "Be sure your sin will find
you out." He who is carrying on a course of latent
corruption and dishonesty, be he president of some
mammoth corporation, or engaged only in private
transactions, is sailing in a ship like that fabled one
of old, which ever comes nearer and nearer to a mag-
netic mountain, that will at last draw every nail out
of it. All faith in God, and all trust in man will
eventually be lost, and he will get no reward for his
guilt. The very winds will sigh forth his iniquity;
and "a beam will come out of the wall," and convict
and smite him.

Strict honesty is the crown of one's early days.
"Your son will not do for me," was once said to a
friend of mine; " he took pains, the other day, to tell a
customer of a small blemish in a piece of goods." The
salesboy is sometimes virtually taught to declare that
goods cost such or such a sum; that they are strong,
fashionable, perfect, when the whole story is false. So
is the bloom of a God-inspired truthfulness not seldom
brushed from the cheek of our simple-hearted children.

We hope and trust these cases are rare; but even
one such house as we allude to, may ruin the integrity
and the fair fame of many a lad. God grant our young
men to feel that "an honest man is the noblest work of
God," and, under all temptations, to live as they feel.

The possession of the principle of honesty is a matter

HONESTY.

253

known most intimately to the man and his God, and
fully, only to the latter. No man knows the extent
and strength of his own honesty, until he has passed the
fiery ordeal of temptation. Men who shudder at the
disho.nesty of others, at one time in life, then sailing
before the favorable wind of prosperity, when adversity
overtakes them, their honesty too often flies away on
the same wings with their riches; and, what they once
viewed with holy horror, they now practice with shame-
less impunity. Others, at the commencement of a
prosperous career, are quite above any tricks in trade;
but their love of money increases with their wealth,
their honesty relaxes, they become hard honest men,
then hardly honest, and are, finally, confirmed in dis-
honesty.

On the great day of account, it will be found, that
men have erred more in judging of the honesty of
others than in any one thing else ; not even religion
excepted. Many who have been condemned, and had
the stigma of dishonesty fixed upon them, because mis-
fortune disabled them from paying their just debts, will
stand acquitted by the Judge of quick and dead, whilst
others cover dishonest hearts and actions, undetected
by man.

It is my earnest desire to eradicate the impression,
so fatal to many a young man, that one cannot live by
being perfectly honest. You must have known men
who have gone on for years in unbroken prosperity
and yet never adopted that base motto, "All is fair ia
trade." You must have seen, too, noble examples of
those who have met with losses and failures, and yet

254 charaAer.

risen from them all with a conscious integrity, and who
have been sustained by the testimony of all around them,
that, though unfortunate,^ they were never dishonest?
When we set before you such examples, when we show
you, not only that "Honesty is the best policy," but
that it is the very keystone of the whole arch of manly
and Christian qualities, it cannot be that every ingen-
ious heart does not 'respond to the appeal. Heaven
grant all such to feel that an "Honest man is the
noblest work of God," and to live as they feel.

There is a structure which every body is building,
young and old, each one for himself. It is called char-
acter, and every act of life is a stone. If day by day
we be careful to build our lives with pure, noble,
upright deeds, at the end will stand a fair temple, hon-
ored by God and man. But, as one leak will sink a
ship, and one flaw break a chain, so one mean, dishon-
orable, untruthful act or word will forever leave its
impress and work its influence on our characters.
Then, let the several deeds unite to form a day, and
one Uy one the days grow into noble years, and the
yeads, as they slowly pass, will raise at last a beautiful
edi$ce, enduring for ever to our praise.

There are as many master- workmen in you as there
are separate faculties; and there are as many blows

CHARACTER.

255

struck as there are separate acts of emotion or volition.
Every single day these myriad forces are building,
building, building. Here is a great structure going up,
point by point, story by story, although you are not
conscious of it. It is a building of character. It is a
building that must stand, and the word of inspiration
warns you to take heed how you build it; to see to it
that you have a foundation that shall endure; to make
sure that you are building on it, not for the hour in
which you live, but for that hour of revelation, when
you shall be seen just as you are.

Our minds are given us, but our characters we make.
Our mental powers must be cultivated. The full
measure of all the powers necessary to make a man
are no more a character than a handful of seeds is an
orchard of fruits. Plant the seeds and tend them well,
and they will make an orchard. Cultivate the powers
and harmonize, them well, and they will make a noble
character. The germ is not the tree, the acorn is not
the oak, neither is the mind a character. God gives
the mind; man makes the character. The mind is the
garden; the character is the fruit; {the mind is the
white page ; the character is the writing we put on it^
The mind is the metallic plate; the character is our
engraving thereon. The mind is the shop, the count-
ing-room ; the character is our profits on the trade.
Large profits are made from quick sales and small per
centage. So great characters are made by many little
acts and efforts. A dollar is composed of a thousand
mills ; so is a character of a thousand thoughts and acts.
£The secret thoughts never expressed, the inward

256

CHARACTER.

indulgences in imaginary wrong, the lie never
told for want of courage, the licentiousness never
indulged in from fear of public rebuke, the irreverence
of the heart, are just as effectual in staining the char-
acter as though the world knew all about them. A
subtile thing is a character; and a constant work is its
formation. Whether it be good or bad, it has been
long in its growth, and is the aggregate of millions of
little mental acts. A good character is a precious
thing, above rubies, gold, crowns, or kingdoms, and the
work of making it is the noblest labor on earth.

Character is formed by a course of actions, and not
actions by character. A person can have no character
before he has had actions. Though an action be ever
so glorious in itself, it ought not to pass for great, if it
be not the effect of wisdom and good design. Great
actions carry their glory with them as the ruby wears
its colors. Whatever be your condition or calling in
life, keep in view the whole of your existence. Act
not for the little span of time allotted you in this world,
but act for eternity.

Characters formed by circumstances are much like
machine poetry. They will do for the sport of mirth,
and the torment of the senses of the beautiful. But
they are horrible things. It makes angels weep to
look at them. They are the picture of old chaos, a
mass of confusion. A thousand winds have blown
together the materials of which they are made. They
usually lack order, harmony, consistency, and beauty,
the very elements and essentials of a good character.
They are those aimless nuisances that live for nothing,

CHARACTER.

257

and mould, and become putrid, about the sewers of the
world. If aught on earth is despicable, it is these
porous masses of conglomerated filth and scum that
float on the surface of society, driven or attracted by
every speck of circumstance about them. They are
purposeless, powerless, enervated automatons, playing
second fiddle to chance. One brave will to resist evil
and hold fast to good, is worth a million of them. One
stout soul, with a resolute determination to make its
own character, after the pattern of its own high
wrought ideal, that, Jackson-like, takes the responsi-
bility of being what suits its well-formed judgment,
is of more real significance than an army of them. It
will stand against them, and defy their power. J

Every man is bound to aim at the possession of a
good character, as one of the highest objects of his
life. The very effort to secure it by worthy means
will furnish him with a motive for exertion; and his
idea of manhood, in proportion as it is elevated, will
steady and animate his motive. It is well to have a
high standard of life, even though we may not be able
altogether to realize it. "The youth," says Disraeli,
"who does not look up will look downj^and the spirit
that does not soar is destined, perhaps, to grovel^' He
who has a high standard of living and thinking will
certainly do better than he who has none at all. We
would have young men, as they start in life, regard
character as "a capital, much surer to yield full returns
than any other capital, unaffected by panics and fail-
ures, fruitful when all other investments lie dormant,
having as certain promise in the present life as in that
17

258

CHARACTER.

which is to come. Character is like stock in trade;
the more of it a man possesses, the greater his facil-
ities for adding to it. Character is power, is influence:
it makes friends,^£reates funds^ draws patronage and
support, and opens a sure and easy way to wealth,
honor and happiness.

^Trifles discover a character more than actions of
importance. In regard to the former, a person is off
his guard, and thinks it not material to use disguise.
It is no imperfect hint toward the discovery of a man's
character to say he looks as though you might be cer-
tain of finding a pin upon his sleeve^ Truthfulness is
a corner-stone in character, and if it is not firmly laid
in youth, there will be ever after a weak spot in the
foundation.

Sum it up then as we will, character is the great
desideratum of human life. This truth, sublime in its
simplicity and powerful in its beauty, is the, highest
lesson of religion, the first that youth should learn,
the last that age should forget.

The value of character is the standard of human
progress. The individual, the community, the nation
tells its standing, its advancement, its worth, its true
wealth and glory in the eye of God by its estimation
of character. That man or nation who or which
lightly esteems character, is low, groveling, and bar-
barous. ^Wherever character is made a secondary
object, sensualism and crime prevaih) He who would
prostitute character to reputation is base. He who
lives for any thing less than character is mean. {He
who enters upon any study, pursuit, amusement, pleas-

PRINCIPLE AND RIGHT.

259

ure, habit, or course of life, without considering its
effect upon his character, is not a trusty or an honest
maiL He whose modes of thought, states of feeling,
every-day acts, common language, and whole outward
life, are not directed by a wise reference to their influ-
ence upon his character, is a man always to be watched.
Just as a man prizes his character, so is he. This is
the true standard of a man.

We often judge unwisely. We approve or condemn
men by their actions. But it so happens that many a
man whom we condemn, God approves; and many a
one whom we approve, God condemns. Here below it
often happens that we have saints in prisons and devils
in priestly robes. We often view things under a false
sight, and pass our judgments accordingly; but God*
judges from behind the vail, where motives reveal
themselves like lightnings on a cloud.

Now, right and might lie in motive. Personally they
answer the questions, "Ought I?" and "Can I?" Some
men ask, "Ought I to do this?" Others ask, "Can I
do this?" It is the angel that asks, "Ought I to do
this?" It is the devil that asks, "Can I do this?"

We all have good and bad in us. The good would
do what it ought to do; the bad does what it can do.
The good dwells in the kingdom of right; the bad sits

260

PRINCIPLE AND RIGHT.

on the throne of might. Right is a loyal subject; might
is a royal tyrant. Right is the foundation of the river
of peace; might is the mother of war and its abomina-
tions. Right is the evangel of God that proclaims the
" acceptable year of the Lord;" might is the scourge
of the world that riots in carnage, groans and blood.
Right is the arm of freedom made bare and beautiful
in the eyes of all the good in heaven and earth; might
is the sword of power unsheathed in the hand of oppres-
sion. Right gains its victories by peace; might con-
quers only by war. Right strengthens its army by the
increase of all its conquered; might weakens its force
by every victory, as a part of its power must stand
guard over its new-made subjects. Right rules by
invitation; might by compulsion. Right is from above;
might from below. Right is unselfish; might knows
nothing but self. Right is for the whole; might is for
one. Right is unassuming; might is pompous as a king.
Right is instructive; might is dictatorial. Right reasons
like a philosopher, and prepares the ground on which it
sows; might stalks on like madness, reckless of every-
thing but the end sought. Right is a lamb, cropping
buds and flowers to make itself more beautiful; might
is a tiger prowling in search of prey. Right is a
moralist resting in principle; might is a worldling seek-
ing for pleasure. These are inward principles con-
tending with each other in every human soul.

There are men, and their number is not small, who
make principle and right depend on policy. They are
honest when they think it policy to be honest. They
smile when it is policy, though they design to stab the

PRINCIPLE AND RIGHT.

261

next minute. Men of policy are honest when it m con-
venient and plainly profitable. When honesty costs
nothing, and will pay well, they are honest; but when
policy will pay best, they give honesty the slip at once.
When they think honesty is the best policy they are
most conscientiously honest; but when policy will, in
their judgment, serve them a better turn, their con-
sciences change faces very quickly. Principle, right
and honesty are always, and everywhere, and eternally
best. It is hard to make honesty and policy work
together in the same mind. When one is out, the other
is in. Honesty will not stay where policy is permitted
to visit. They do not think or act alike, and never can
be made to agree. They have nothing in common.
One is the prophet of God, the other of Baal.

There are men who choose honesty as a soul com-
panion. They live in it, and with it, and by it. They
embody it in their actions and lives. Their words speak
it. Their faces beam it. Their actions proclaim it.
Thei. hands are true to it. Their feet tread its path.
They are full of it. They love it. - It is to them like a
God. They believe it is of God. With religious awe
they obey its behests. Not gold, or crowns, or fame,
«could bribe them to leave it. They are wedded to it
from choice. It is their first love. It makes them
"beautiful men ; yea, more, noble men, great, brave,
righteous men. When God looks about for his jewels,
these are the men his eye rests on, well pleased. He
keeps his angels employed in making crowns for them,
and they make crowns for themselves too! Crowns of
honesty! To some men they seem not very beautiful

262

VALUE OF REPUTATION.

in the dim light of earth; but when the radiance of
heaven is opened upon them, they will reflect it in
gorgeous splendor. Nothing is brighter; nothing is
better ; nothing is worth more, or more substantial.
Honesty, peerless queen of principles! how her smile
enhaloes the men who love her! How ready they are
to suffer for her, to die for her. They are the martyrs.
See them. What a multitude! Some at the stake;
some in stocks; some in prison; some before judges as
criminals; some on gibbets, and some on the cross-
But they are all sustained. They smile on their foes.
They have peace within. They are strong and brave
in heart. Their souls are dauntless as the bright
old sun.

Who shall estimate the cost of a priceless reputa-
tion— that impress which gives this human dross its
currency — without which we stand despised, debased,,
depreciated? Who shall repair it injured? Who can
redeem it lost? Oh, well and truly does the great phi-
losopher of poetry esteem the world's wealth as "trash"'
in the comparison. Without it, gold has no value;
birth, no distinction; station, no dignity; beauty, no
charm; age, no reverence; without it every treasure
impoverishes, every grace deforms, every dignity de
grades, and all the arts, the decorations, and accom>

VALUE OF REPUTATION.

263

plishments of life stand, like the beacon-blaze upon a
rock, warning the world that its approach is dangerous ;
that its contact is death.

The wretch without it is under eternal quarantine;
no friend to greet; no home to harbor him. The
voyage of his life becomes a joyless peril; and in the
midst of all ambition can achieve, or avarice amass, or
rapacity plunder, he tosses on the surge, a buoyant
-pestilence. But let me not degrade into selfishness of
individual safety or individual exposure this individual
principle; it testifies a higher, a more ennobling origin.

It is this which, consecrating the humble circle of the
hearth, will at times extend itself to the circumference
of the horizon; which nerves the arm of the patriot to
save his country; which lights the lamp of the philoso-
pher to amend man; which, if it does not inspire, will
yet invigorate the martyr to merit immortality; which,,
when one world's agony is passed, and the glory of
another is dawning, will prompt the prophet, even in
his chariot of fire, and in his vision of Heaven, ta
bequeath to mankind the mantle of his memory!

Oh, divine! oh, delightful legacy of a spotless repu-
tation ! Rich is the inheritance it leaves ; pious the
example it testifies; pure, precious, and imperishable,
the hope which it inspires ! Can there be conceived a
more atrocious injury than to filch from its possessor this
inestimable benefit — to rob society of its charm, and
solitude of its solace; not only to outlaw life, but to
attaint death, converting the very grave, the refuge of
the sufferer, into the gate of infamy and of shame!

We can conceive few crimes beyond it. He who plun-

264

FAME.

ders my property takes from me that which can be
repaired by time; but what period can repair a ruined
reputation? He who maims my person, affects that
which medicine may remedy ; but what herb has
sovereignty over the wounds of slander ? He who
ridicules my poverty, or reproaches my profession,
upbraids me with that which industry may retrieve,
and integrity may purify ; but what riches shall
redeem the bankrupt fame? What power shall blanch
the sullied snow of character ? There can be no
injury more deadly. There can be no crime more
cruel. It is without remedy. It is without antidote.
It is without evasion.

The reptile, calumny, is ever on the watch. From
the fascinations of its eye no activity can escape; from
the venom of its fang no sanity can recover. It has no
enjoyment but crime; it has no prey but virtue; it has
no interval from the restlessness of its malice, save
when bloated with its victims, it grovels to disgorge
them at the withered shrine where envy idolizes her
own infirmities.

Though fame is smoke,
Its fumes are frankincense to human thoughts.

— Byron.

Fame, like money, should neither be despised or
idolized. An honest fame, based op worth and merit,

FAME.

265

and gained, like large estates, by prudence and indus-
try, deservedly perpetuates the names of the great and
good.

No glory or fame is both consolatory and enduring,
unless based on virtue, wisdom, and justice. That
acquired by wild ambition, is tarnished by associ-
ation— time deepens the stain. We read the biog-
raphy of Washington with calmness and delight; that
of Bonaparte, with mingled feelings of admiration and
abhorrence. We admire the gigantic powers of his
intellect, the vastness of his designs, the boldness of
their execution; but turn, with horror, from the slaugh-
ter-fields of his ambition, and his own dreadful end.
His giddy height of power served to plunge him
deeper in misery; his lofty ambition increased the
burning tortures of his exile; his towering intellect
added a duplicate force to the consuming pangs of
his disappointment. His fatal end should cool the
ardor of all who have an inordinate desire for earthly
glory.

The praises and commendations of intimates and
friends, are the greatest and most impassable obstacles
to real superiority. Better were it, that they should
whip us with cords and drive us to work, than that
they should extol and exaggerate our childish scintil-
lations and puerile achievements.

False fame is the rushlight which we, or our attend-
ants, kindle in our apartments. We witness its feeble
burning, and its gradual but certain decline. It glim-
mers for a little while, when, with flickering and
palpitating radiance, it soon expires.

266

FAME.

Egotism and vanity detract from fame as ostentation
diminishes the merit of an action. He that is vain
enough to cry up himself, ought to be punished with
the silence of others. We soil the splendor of our
most beautiful actions by our vain-glorious magnifying;
them. There is no vice or folly that requires so much
nicety and skill to manage as fame, nor any which, by
ill management, makes so contemptible a figure. The
desire of being thought famous is often a hindrance to
being so; for such an one is more solicitous to let the
world see what knowledge he hath than to learn that
which he wants. Men are found to be vainer on
account of those qualities which they fondly believe
they have, than of those which they really have.
Some would be thought to do great things, who are
but tools or instruments; like the fool who fancied
he played upon the organ, when he only drew the
bellows.

Be not so greedy of popular applause, as to forget
that the same breath which blows up a fire may blow
it out again. True fame is the light of heaven. It
cometh from afar, it shines powerfully and brightly,
but not always without clouds and shadows, which
interpose, but do not destroy; eclipse, but do not extin-
guish. Like the glorious sun, it will continue to diffuse
its beams when we are no more; for other eyes will
hail the light, when we are withdrawn from it.

Great and decided talent is a tower of strength
which cannot be subverted. Envy, detraction, and
persecution are missiles hurled against it only to fall
harmless at its base, and to strengthen what they

FAME.

267

cannot overthrow. It seeks not the applause of the
present moment, in which folly or mediocrity often
secure the preference; but it extends its bright and
prophetic vision through the "dark obscure" of dis-
tant time, and bequeaths to remote generations the
vindication of its honor and fame, and the clear
comprehension of its truths.

No virtues and learning are inherited, but rather
ignorance and misdirected inclinations; and assiduous
and persevering labor must correct these defects, and
make a fruitful garden of that soil which is naturally
encumbered with stones and thistles. All home-tri-
umphs and initiatory efforts are nothing worth. That
which is great, commanding, and lasting, must be won
by stubborn energy, by patient industry, by unwearied
application, and by indefatigable zeal. We must lie
down and groan, and get up and toil. It is a long
race, not a pleasant walk, and the prize is not a leaf
or a bauble, but a chaplet or a crown. The spectators
are not friends, but foes; and the contest is one in
which thousands fall through weakness and want of
real force and courage*

We may add virtue to virtue, strength to strength,
and knowledge to knowledge, and yet fail, and soon
be lost and forgotten in that mighty and soul-testing
struggle, in which few come off conquerors and win
an enduring and imperishable name. If we embark
on this course, we shall need stout hearts conjoined
with invincible minds. We must bid adieu to vice,
to sloth, to flatteries and ease,

"And scorn delights and live laborious days."

268

AMBITION.

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.

— Byron.

Some conceited wights, who study party politics
more than philosophy or ethics, call all the laudable
desires of the human heart ambition, aiming to strip
the monster of its deformity, that they may use it as
the livery of heaven to serve the devil in. The former
are based on philanthropy, the latter on selfishness.
Lexicographers define ambition to be an earnest desire
of power, honor, preferment, pride. The honor that
is awarded to power is of doubtful grandeur, and the
power that is acquired by ambition is held by a slender
tenure, a mere rope of sand. Its hero often receives
the applause of the multitude one day, and its execra-
tions the next. The summit of vain ambition is often
the depth of misery. Based on a sandy foundation, it
falls before the blasts of envy, and the tornado of
faction. It is inflated by a gaseous thirst for power,
like a balloon with hydrogen, and is in constant danger
of being exploded by the very element that causes its
elevation. It eschews charity, and deals largely in the
corrosive sublimate of falsehood. Like the kite, it
cannot rise in a calm, and requires a constant wind to
preserve its upward course. The fulcrum of igno-
rance, and the lever of party spirit, form its magic
power. An astute writer has well observed , that

AMBITION.

269

"ambition makes the same mistake concerning power,
that avarice makes relative to wealth." The ambi-
tious man begins by accumulating it as the desideratum
of happiness, and ends his career in the midst of exer-
tions to obtain more. So ended the onward and up-
ward career of Napoleon; his life a modern wonder;
his fate a fearful warning; his death a scene of gloom.
Power is gained as a means of enjoyment, but oftener
than otherwise, is its fell destroyer. Like the viper in
the fable, it is prone to sting those who warm it into
life. History fully demonstrates these propositions.
Hyder Ali was in the habit of starting frightfully in his
sleep. His confidential friend and attendant asked the
reason. He replied: "My friend, the state of a beggar
is more delightful than my envied monarchy — awake,
he sees no conspirators — asleep, he dreams of no assas-
sins." Ambition, like the gold of the miser, is the
sepulchre of the other passions of the man. It is the
grand centre around which they move with centripetal
force. Its history is one of carnage and blood; it is
the bane of substantial good; it endangers body and
soul for time and eternity. Reader, if you desire peace
of mind, shun ambition and the ambitious man. He
will use you as some men do their horses, ride you all
day without food, and give you post meat for supper.
He will gladly make a bridge of you on which to walk
into power, provided he can pass toll free. Let your
ftim be more lofty than the highest pinnacle ambition
can rear. Nothing is pure but heaven, let that be the
prize you seek,

270

AVARICE.

" And taste and prove in that transporting sight,
Joy without sorrow, without darkness — light."

The road ambition travels is too narrow for friend-
ship, too crooked for love, too rugged for honesty, too
dark for science, and too hilly for happiness.

A judicious writer has well remarked, that avarice
is the father of more children than Priam, and, like
him, survives them all. It is a paradoxical propensity,
a species of heterogeneous insanity. The miser starves
himself, knowing that those who wish him dead will
fatten on his hoarded gains. He submits to more
torture to lose heaven than the martyr does to gain it.
He serves the worst of tyrannical masters more faith-
fully than most Christians do the best, whose yoke is
easy and burden light. He worships this world, but
repudiates all its pleasures. He endures all the miseries
of poverty through life, that he may die in the midst
of wealth. He is the mere turnkey of his own riches — -
a poorly-fed and badly-clothed slave; a draught-horse
without bells or feathers; a man condemned to work
in mines, which is the lowest and hardest condition of
servitude; and, to increase his misery, a worker there
for he knows not whom. "He heapeth up riches and
knows not who shall enjoy them." It is only sure that
he himself neither shall nor can enjoy them. He is an

AVARICE.

271

indigent, needy slave; he will hardly allow himself
clothes and board wages. He defrauds not only other
men, but his own genius; he cheats himself for money.
He lives as if the world were made altogether for him,
and not he for the world; to take in everything and to
part with nothing. Charity is accounted no grace with
him, and gratitude no virtue. The cries of the poor
never enter his ears, or if they do, he has always one
ear readier to let them out than the other to take them
in. In a word, by his rapines and extortions he is
always for making as many poor as he can, but for
relieving none whom he either finds or makes so. So
that it is a question whether his heart be harder or his
fist closer. In a word, he is a pest and a monster;
greedier than the sea and barrener than the shore. He
is the cocoon of the human race — death ends his toils
and others reel off the glossy product of his labors.
He is the father of more miseries than the prodigal —
whilst he lives he heaps them on himself and those
around him. He is his own and the poor man's enemy.

The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand
sepulchre of all his other passions, as they successively
decay. But, unlike other tombs, it is enlarged by
repletion and strengthened by age. His mind is never
expanded beyond the circumference of the almighty
dollar. He thinks not of his immortal soul, his account-
ability to God, or of his final destiny. He covets the
wealth of others, revels in extortion, stops at nothing
to gratify his ruling passion, that will not endanger his
dear idol. He is an Ishmael in community — he passes
to the grave without tasting the sweets of friendship,

272

GAMBLING.

the delights of social intercourse, or the comforts of a
good repast, unless the latter is got by invitation, when
abroad. The first voluntary expenditure upon his
body, during his manhood, and the first welcome visit
of his neighbors, both passive on his part, are at his
funeral.

If we would enjoy the comforts of life rationally, we
must avoid the miseries of avarice and the evils of
prodigality. Let us use the provisions of our benevo-
lent Benefactor without abusing them, and render to
Him that gratitude which is His due. Banish all
inordinate desires after wealth — if you gain an abund-
ance, be discreetly liberal, judiciously benevolent, and,
if your children have arrived at their majority, die your
own executor.

Every device that suddenly changes money or
property from one person to another without a quid
fro quo, or leaving an equivalent, produces individual
embarrassment — often extreme misery. More per-
nicious is that plan, if it changes property and money
from the hands of the many to the few.

Gambling does this, and often inflicts a still greater
injury, by poisoning its victims with vice, that event-
ually lead to crimes of the darkest hue. Usually, the
money basely niched from its victims, is the smallest

GAMBLING.

273

part of the injury inflicted. It almost inevitably leads
to intemperance: Every species of offense, on the
black catalogue of crime, may be traced to the gam-
bling table, as the entering wedge to its perpetration.

This alarming evil is as wide-spread as our country.
It is practiced from the humblest water craft that floats
on our canals up to the majestic steamboat on our
mighty rivers; from the lowest groggeries that curse
the community, up to the most fashionable hotels that
claim respectability; from the hod carrier in his
bespattered rags, up to the honorable members of
congress in their ruffles. Like a mighty maelstrom,
its motion, at the outside, is scarcely perceptible, but
soon increases to a fearful velocity; suddenly the awful
center is reached — the victim is lost in the vortex.
Interested friends may warn, the wife may entreat,
with all the eloquence of tears; children may cling
and cry for bread — once in the fatal snare, the victim
of gamblers is seldom saved. He combines the deaf-
ness of the adder with the desperation of a maniac,
and rushes on, regardless of danger — reckless of
consequences.

To the fashionable of our country, who play cards
and other games as an innocent amusement, we may
trace the most aggravated injuries resulting from gam-
bling. It is there that young men of talents, education,
and wealth, take the degree of entered apprentice.
The example of men in high life, men in public sta-
tions and responsible offices, has a powerful and cor-
rupting influence on society, and does much to increase
the evil, and forward, as well as sanction the high-
18

274

GAMBLING.

tianded robbery of fine dressed blacklegs. The gam-
bling hells in our cities, tolerated and patronized, are
a disgrace to a nation bearing a Christian name, and
would be banished from a Pagan community.

Gambling assumes a great variety of forms, from
the flipping of a cent in the bar room for a glass of
whisky, up to the splendidly furnished faro bank room,
where men are occasionally swindled to the tune of
""ten thousand a year," and sometimes a much larger
amount. In addition to these varieties, we have legal-
ized lotteries and fancy stock brokers, and among those
who manage them, professors of religion are not
unfrequently found.

Thousands who carefully shun the monster under
any other form, pay a willing tribute to the tyrant at
the shrine of lotteries. Persons from all classes throw
their money into this vault of uncertainty, this whirl-
pool of speculation, with a less chance to regain it than
when at the detested faro bank. It is here that the
poor man spends his last dollar ; it is here that the rich
often become poor, for a man has ten chances to be
killed by lightning where he has one to draw a capital
prize. The ostensible objects of lotteries are always
praiseworthy. Meeting houses, hospitals, seminaries
of learning, internal improvement, some laudable enter-
prize, may always be found first and foremost in a lot-
tery scheme; the most ingenious and most fatal gull
trap ever invented by man or devil.

Gaming cowers in darkness, and often blots out all
£he nobler powers of the heart, paralyzes its sensibili-
ties to human woe, severs the sacred ties that bind man

GAMBLING.

275

to man, to woman, to family, to community, to morals,
to religion, to social order, and to country. It trans-
forms men to brutes, desperadoes, maniacs, misan'
thropists, and strips human nature of all its native
dignity. The gamester forfeits the happiness of this
life and endures the penalties of sin in both worlds.
His profession is the scavenger of avarice, haggard and
filthy, badly fed, poorly clad, and worse paid.

Let me entreat all to shun the monster, under all his
borrowed and deceptive forms. Remember that gam-
bling for amusement is the wicket gate into the laby-
rinth, and when once in, you may find it difficult to get
out. Ruin is marked in blazing capitals over the door
of the gambler; his hell is the vestibule to that eternal
hell where the worm clieth not and the fire is not
quenched. If you regard your own, and the happiness
of your family and friends, and the salvation of your
immortal soul, recoil from even the shadow of a shade
reflected by this heaven-daring, heart-breaking, soul-
destroying, fashionable, but ruinous vice.

An evil that starts upon a wrong principle, the vital
element of which is injustice, must have a vast pro-
ductive force in creating other evils. It is necessarily
a mighty agency in destroying all that is good in the
soul; vitiating the whole character, and dragging down
every lofty purpose and noble aspiration. And we find
that the gambler is rapidly qualified for every other
species of wickedness. The fiery excitement to which
he yields himself in the game-room inflames every
other passion. It produces a state of mind that can be
satisfied only with intense and forbidden pleasures. It

276

GAMBLING.

virtually takes him out of the circle of refined, rational
enjoyment and plunges him into scenes more congenial
to a corrupt taste. He would gladly witness as a
pastime bull fights, pugilistic contests; and perhaps his
craving for excitement could only be fully satisfied by
scenes such as Roman persecutors and heathen specta-
tors formerly feasted upon, in which men and women
were torn in pieces by wild beasts. Such bloody
encounters and horrid tragedies might come up to his
standard of amusement.

Thus does the giant vice uncivilize a man and throw
him back into a state of barbarism. It revolutionizes
his tastes at the same time that it casts down his moral
principles. If its victim has been in early life under
the influence of religious sentiment, it speedily obliter-
ates those sentiments from the mind. If the voice of
conscience has been in the past years heard, that voice
is now silenced. If feelings of humanity once had
influence, their power is now gone. If visions of
extensive usefulness and honorable achievement once
floated in the imagination they have vanished ; vanished
in the distance, never to. return.

Nor should the youth forget that if he is once taken
in the coils of this vice, the hope of extricating himself,
or of realizing his visions of wealth and happiness, is
exceedingly faint. He has no rational grounds to
expect that he can escape the terrible consequences
that are inseparably connected with this sin. If he
does not become bankrupt in property, he is sure to
become one in character and in moral principle; he
becomes a debauched, debased, friendless vagabond.

TEMPER.

277

Good temper is like a sunny day, it sheds its bright-
ness on everything. No trait of character is more
valuable than the possession of good temper. Home
can never be made happy without it. It is like flowers
springing up in our pathway, reviving and cheering us.
Kind words and looks are the outward demonstration;
patience and forbearance are the sentinels within.

If a man has a quarrelsome temper, let him alone.
The world will soon find him employment. He will
soon meet with some one stronger than himself, who
will repay him better than you can. A man may fight
duels all his life if he is disposed to quarrel. How
sweet the serenity of habitual self-command ! How
many stinging self-reproaches it spares us! When does
a man feel more at ease with himself than when he has
passed through a sudden and strong provocation with-
out speaking a -word, or in undisturbed good humor !
When, on the contrary, does he feel a deeper humilia-
tion than when he is conscious that anger has made
him betray himself b}r word, look or action? Nervous
irritability is the greatest weakness of character. It is
the sharp grit which aggravates friction and cuts out
the bearings of the entire human machine. Nine out
of every ten men we meet are in a chronic state of
annoyance. The least untoward thing sets them in a
ferment.

There are people, yes many people, always looking
out for slights. They cannot carry on the daily inter.

278

TEMPER.

course of the family without rinding that some offense
is designed. They are as touchy as hair triggers. If
they meet an acquaintance who happens to be pre-
occupied with business, they attribute his abstraction
in some mode personal to themselves and take umbrage
accordingly. They lay on others the fruit of their
irritability. Indigestion makes them see impertinence
in every one they come in contact with. Innocent per-
sons, who never dreamed of giving offense, are aston-
ished to find some unfortunate word, or momentary
taciturnity, mistaken for an insult. To say the least^
the habit is unfortunate. It is far wiser to take the
more charitable view of our fellow beings, and not sup-
pose that a slight is intended unless the neglect is open
and direct. After all, too, life takes its hues in a great
degree from the color of our own mind. If we are
frank and generous, the world will treat us kindly; if^
on the contrary, we are suspicious, men learn to be
cold and cautious to us. Let a person get the reputa-
tion of being "touchy," and everybody is under
restraint, and in this way the chances of an imaginary
offense are vastly increased.

Do you not find in households — refined, many of
them — many women who are jealous, exacting, ancl
have a temper that will be swayed by nothing? And
do we not see in another family circle, a man as coarse
and bloody-mouthed as a despot? The purpose of the
existence of a score of people is to make him happy,,
fan him, feed him, amuse him, and he stands as a great
absorbent of the life and heat that belongs to the rest.
Many sermons tell you to be meek and humble, but

TEMPER.

you do n't hear many which tell you you live in your
families to growl, to bite, and to worry one another..
You ought to make in your households the outward
and visible life-work for this spiritual and transcendent
life. There can be nothing too graceful and truthful,,
generous, disinterested and gracious for the household.
All that a man expects to be in heaven, he ought to try
to be from day to day with his wife and children, and
with those that are members of his family.

It is said of Socrates, that whether he was teaching
the rules of an exact morality, whether he was answer-
ing his corrupt judges, or was receiving sentence of
death, or swallowing the poison, he was still the same
man; that is to say, calm, quiet, undisturbed, intrepid5,
in a word, wise to the last.

A man once called at the house of Pericles and'
abused him violently. His anger so transcended him.
that he did not observe how late it was growing, and
when he had exhausted his passion it was quite dark.
When he turned to depart, Pericles calmly summoned
a servant and said to him, "Bring a lamp and attend
this man home."

Like flakes of snow that fall unperceived upon the
earth, the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed
one another. As the snow gathers together, so are our
habits formed. No single flake that is added to the
pile produces a sensible change. No single action
creates, however it may exhibit a man's character; but
as the tempest hurls the avalanche down the mountain,,
and overwhelms the inhabitant and his habitation, so
passion, acting upon the elements of mischief which

280

TEMPER.

pernicious habits have brought together by impercepti-
ble accumulation, may overthrow the edifice of truth
and virtue.

Truly, a man ought to be, above all things, kind and
gentle, but however meek he is required to be, he also
ought to remember that he is a man. There are many
persons to whom we do not need to tell this truth, for
as soon as they only think of having been offended or
that somebody has done them any harm, they fly up
like gunpowder. Long before the}' know for a cer-
tainty that there is a thief in the garden they have the
window open and the old gun has been popped. It is a
very dangerous thing to have such neighbors, for we
could sit more safely on the horns of a bull than to live
in quietness with such characters. We, therefore, should
form no friendship with persons of a wrathful temper,
and go no farther than is needful with a man of a fiery
and unrestrained spirit. Solomon said, " He that is
slow to wrath is of great understanding, but he that is
hasty of spirit exalteth folly."

Our advice is, to keep cool under all circumstances,
if possible. Much may be effected by cultivation. We
should learn to command our feelings and act prudently
in all the ordinary concerns of life. This will better
prepare us to meet sudden emergencies with calmness
and fortitude. If we permit our feelings to be ruffled
and disconcerted in small matters, they will be thrown
into a whirlwind when big events overtake us. Our
best antidote is, implicit confidence in God.

ANGER.

281

It does no good to get angry. Some sins have a
seeming compensation or apology, a present gratifica-
tion of some sort, but anger has none. A man feels
no better for it. It is really a torment, and when the
storm of passion has cleared away, it leaves one to see
that he has been a fool. And he has made himself a
fool in the eyes of others too.

Sinful anger, when it becomes strong, is called wrath;
when it makes outrages, it is fury; when it becomes
fixed, it is termed hatred; and when it intends to injure
any one, it is called malice. All these wicked passions
spring from anger. The continuance and frequent fits
of anger produce an evil habit in the soul, a propensity
to be angry, which oftentimes ends in choler, bitter-
ness, and morosity; when the mind becomes ulcerated,
peevish, and querulous, and like a thin, weak plate of
iron, receives impressions, and is wounded by the least
occurrence.

Anger is such a headstrong and impetuous passion,
that the ancients call it a short madness; and indeed
there is no difference between an angry man and a
madman while the fit continues, because both are void
of reason and blind for that season. It is a disease
that, where it prevails, is no less dangerous than
deforming to us; it swells the face, it agitates the
body, and inflames the blood; and as the evil spirit
mentioned in the Gospel threw the possessed into the
fire or the water, so it casts us into all kinds of danger.

282

ANGER.

It too often ruins or subverts whole families, towns,
cities, and kingdoms. It is a vice that very few can
conceal; and if it does not betray itself by such exter-
nal signs as paleness of the countenance and trembling
of the limbs, it is more impetuous within, and by
gnawing in the heart injures the body and the mind
very much.

No man is obliged to live so free from passion as
not to show some resentment; and it is rather stoical
stupidity than virtue, to do otherwise. Anger may
glance into the breast of a wise man, but rests only in
the bosom of fools. Fight hard against a hasty temper.
Anger will come, but resist it strongly. A spark may
set a house on fire. A fit of passion may give you
cause to mourn all the days of your life. Never
revenge an injury. When Socrates found in himself
any disposition to anger, he would check it by speak-
ing low, in opposition to the motions of his displeasure.
If you are conscious of being in a passion, keep your
mouth shut, for words increase it. Many a person has
dropped dead in a rage. Fits of anger bring fits of
disease. "Whom the gods would destroy they first
make mad," and the example is a good one for our
imitation. If you would demolish an opponent in
argument, first make him as mad as you can. Dr.
Fuller used to say that the heat of passion makes our
souls to crack, and the devil creeps in at the crevices.
Anger is a passion the most criminal and destructive
of all the passions; the only one that not only bears
the appearance of insanity, but often produces the
wildest form of madness. It is difficult, indeed, some-

ANGER.

28a

times to mark the line that distinguishes the bursts of
rage from the bursts of phrenzy; so similar are its
movements, and too often equally similar are its actions.
What crime has not been committed in the paroxysms
of anger? Has not the friend murdered his friend?
the son massacred his parent ? the creature blasphemed
his Creator? When, indeed, the nature of this passion
is considered, what crime may it not commit? Is it
not the storm of the human mind, which wrecks every
better affection — wrecks reason and conscience; and,
as a ship driven without helm or compass before the
rushing gale, is not the mind borne away, without
guide or government, by the tempest of unbounded
rage ?

A passionate temper renders a man unfit for advice,
deprives him of his reason, robs him of all that is either
great or noble in his nature; it makes him unfit for
conversation, destroys friendship, changes justice into
cruelty, and turns ail order into confusion. Says Lord
Bacon: uAn angry man who suppresses his passions,
thinks worse than he speaks; and an angry man that
will chide, speaks worse than he thinks." A wise man
hath no more anger than is necessary to show that he
can apprehend the first wrong, nor any more revenge
than justly to prevent a second. One angry word
sometimes raises a storm that time itself cannot allay.
There is many a man whose tongue might govern
multitudes, if he could only govern his tongue. He is
the man of power who controls the storms and tem-
pests of his mind. He that will be angry for anything,
will be angry for nothing. As some are often incensed

284

ANGER.

without a cause, so they are apt to continue their
anger, lest it should appear to their disgrace to have
begun without occasion. If we do not subdue our
anger it will subdue us. It is the second word that
makes the quarrel. That anger is not warrantable
that hath seen two suns. One long anger, and twenty
short ones, have no very great difference. Our passions
are like the seas, agitable by the winds; and as God
hath set bounds to these, so should we to those — so
far shali thou go, and no farther.

Angry and choleric men are as ungrateful and unso-
ciable as thunder and lightning, being in themselves all
storm and tempests ; but quiet and easy natures are
like fair weather, welcome to all, and acceptable to all
men; they gather together what the other disperses,
and reconcile all whom the other incenses; as they
have the good will and the good wishes of all other
men, so they have the full possession of themselves,
have all their own thoughts at peace, and enjoy quiet
and ease in their own fortunes, how strait soever it
may be.

But how with the angry, who thinks well of an ill-
natured, churlish man, who has to be approached in
the most guarded and cautious way ? Who wishes
him for a neighbor, or a partner in business. He
keeps all about him in nearly the same state of mind
as if they were living next door to a hornet's nest or a
rabbid animal. And so to prosperity in business; one
gets along no better for getting angry. What if busi-
ness is perplexing, and everything goes "by contraries!"
Will a fit of passion make the wind more propitious.

ANGER.

285

the ground more productive, the market more favor-
able? Will a bad temper draw customers, pay notes,
and make creditors better natured? If men, animals,
or senseless matter cause trouble, will getting "mad"
help matters? — make men more subservient, brutes
more docile, wood and stone more tractable ? Any
angry man adds nothing to the welfare of society. He
may do some good, but more hurt. Heated passion
makes him a firebrand, and it is a wonder that he does
not kindle flames of discord on every hand.

The disadvantages arising from anger, under all cir-
cumstances, should prove a panacea for the complaint.
In moments of cool reflection, the man who indulges it,
views, with deep regret, the desolations produced by a
summer storm of passion. Friendship, domestic hap-
piness, self-respect, the esteem of others, and sometimes
property, are swept away by a whirlwind; perhaps a
tornado of anger. I have more than once seen the
furniture of a house in a mass of ruin, the work of an
angry moment. I have seen anger make wives un-
happy, alienate husbands, spoil children, derange all
harmony, and disturb the quiet of a whole neighbor-
hood. Anger, like too much wine, hides us from
ourselves, but exposes us to others.

Some people seem to live in a perpetual storm; calm
weather can never be reckoned upon in their company.
Suddenly, when you least expect it, without any ade-
quate reason, and almost without any reason at all, the
sky becomes black, and the wind rises, and there is
growling thunder and pelting rain. You can hardly
tell where the tempest came from. An accident for

286

ANGER.

which no one can be rightly blamed, a misunderstand- *
ing which a moment's calm thought would have termi-
nated, a chance word which meant no evil, a trifling
difficulty which good sense might have removed at
once, a slight disappointment which a cheerful heart
would have borne with a smile, brings on earthquakes
and hurricanes. What men want of reason for their
opinions, they are apt to supply and make up in rage.
The most irreconcilable enmities grow from the most
intimate friendships. To be angry with a weak man
is to prove that you are not very strong yourself. It is
much better to reprove than to be angry secretly.
Anger, says Pythagoras, begins with folly and ends
with repentance.

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you
wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself what
you wish to be.

He that is angry with the just reprover kindles the
fire of the just avenger. Bad money cannot circulate
through the veins and arteries of trade. It is a great
pity that bad blood can circulate through the veins and
arteries of the human frame. It seems a pity that an
angry man, like the bees that leave their stings in the
wounds they make, could inflict only a single injury.
And, to a certain extent, it is so, for anger has been
compared to a ruin, which, in falling upon its victims,
breaks itself to pieces. Since, then, anger is useless,
disgraceful, without the least apology, and found "only
in the bosom of fools," why should it be indulged at all?

OBSTINACY.

287

An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they
hold him; for when he is once possessed of an error, it
is like a devil, only cast out with great difficulty.
Whatsoever he lays hold on, like a drowning man, he
never looses, though it but help to sink him the sooner.
Narrowness of mind is the cause of obstinacy. We
do not easily believe what is beyond our sight. There
are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mis-
take. Obstinacy is a barrier to all improvement.
Whoever perversely resolves to adhere to plans or
opinions, be they right or be they wrong, because such
plans and opinions have been already adopted by them,
raises an impenetrable bar to conviction and informa-
tion. To be open to conviction, speaks a wise mind, an
amiable character. Human nature is so frail and so
ignorant, so liable to misconception, that none but the
most incorrigibly vain can pertinaciously determine to
abide by self-suggested sentiments, unsanctioned by the
experience or the judgment of others, as only the most
incurably foolish can be satisfied with the extent of
their knowledge. The wiser we are, the more we are
aware of our ignorance. Whoever resolves not to alter
his measures, shuts himself out from all possibility of
improvement, and must die, as he lives, ignorant, or at
best but imperfectly informed.

In morals, perhaps, obstinacy may be more plausibly
excused, and, under the misnomer of firmness, be prac-
ticed as a virtue. But the line between obstinacy and

288

OBSTINACY.

firmness is strong and decisive. The smallest share of
common sense will suffice to detect it, and there is little
doubt that few people pass this boundary without being
conscious of the fault.

It will probably be found that those qualities which
come under the head of foibles, rather than of vices,
render people most intolerable as companions and coad-
jutors. For example, it may be observed that those
persons have a more worn, jaded, and dispirited look
than any others, who have to live with people who
make difficulties on every occasion, great or small. It
is astonishing to see how. this practice of making diffi-
culties grows into a confirmed habit of mind, and what
disheartenment it occasions. The savor of life is taken
out of it when you know that nothing you propose or
do, or suggest, hope for, or endeavor, will meet with
any response but an enumeration of the difficulties that
lie in the path you wish to travel. The difficulty-
monger is to be met with not only in domestic and
social life, but also in business. It not unfrequently
occurs in business relations that the chief will never by
any chance, without many objections and much bring-
ing forward of possible difficulties, approve of anything
that is brought to him by his subordinates. They at
last cease to take pains, knowing that no amount of
pains will prevent their work being dealt with in a
spirit of ingenious objectiveness. At last they say to
themselves, " The better the thing we present, the
more opportunity he will have for developing his un-
pleasant task of objectiveness, and his imaginative
power of inventing difficulties."

HYPOCRISY.

289

Of all disagreeable people, the obstinate are the
worst. Society is often dragged down to low standards
by two or three who propose, in every case, to fight
everything and every idea of which they are not the
instigators. When a new idea is brought to such per-
sons, instead of drawing out of it what good they can,
they seek to get the bad, ever ready to heap a moun-
tain of difficulties upon it. In trying to suggest an
improvement to anything, or an idea, fairly unmans
them, or throws dirt in their eyes so they can't see
what they otherwise might have arrived at.

But there are situations in which the proper opinions
and mode of conduct are not evident. In such cases
we must maturely reflect ere we decide; we must seek
for the opinions of those wiser and better acquainted
with the subject than ourselves ; we must candidly hear
all that can be said on both sides; then, and only then,
can we in such cases hope to determine wisely; but the
decision, once so deliberately adopted, we must firmly
sustain, and never yield but to the most unbiased
conviction of our former error.

There is no foolishness in the world so great as to
be a hypocrite. He is hated of the world for seeming
to be a Christian; he is hated by God for not being
one. He hates himself and he is even despised by
19

290

HYPOCRISY.

Satan for serving him and not acknowledging it. They
are really the best followers and the greatest dupes
that he has; they serve him better than any other, but
receive no wages. And what is most wonderful, they
submit to greater mortifications to go to hell than the
most sincere Christian to go to heaven. They desire
more to seem good than to be so, while the Christian
desires more to be so than to seem so. They study
more to enter into religion than that religion should
enter into them. They are zealous in little things but
cold and remiss in the most important. They are
saints by pretension, but satans in intention. They
testify, they worship only to answer their wicked
purposes. They stand as angels before their sins so
as to hide them. A scorpion thinks when its head
is under a leaf it cannot be seen. So the hypocrite.
The false saints think when they have hoisted up one
or two good works, that all their sins therewith are
covered and hid.

Let us ask ourselves seriously and honestly, "What
do I believe after all ? What manner of man am I after
all? What sort of a show should I make after all, if
the people around me knew my heart and all my
secret thoughts ? What , sort of show, then, do I
already make, in the sight of Almighty God, who
sees every man exactly as he is?" Oh, that poor
soul, though it may fool people and itself, it will not
fool God!

Hypocrisy shows love, but is hatred; shows friend-
ship, but is an enemy; shows peace, but is at war; it
shows virtue, but is wretched and wicked. It flatters;

HYPOCRISY.

291

it curses; it praises; it slanders. It always has two
sides of a question; it possesses what it does not pre-
tend, and pretends what it does not possess.

Men are afraid of slight outward acts which will
injure them in the eyes of others, while they are heed-
less of the damnation which throbs in their souls in
hatreds, and jealousies, and revenges.

They are more troubled by the outburst of a sinful
disposition, than by the disposition itself. It is not
the evil, but its reflex effect upon themselves, that they
dread. It is the love of approbation, and not the con-
science, that enacts the part of a moral sense, in this
case. If a man covets, he steals. If a man has mur-
derous hate, he murders. If a man broods dishonest
thoughts, he is a knave. If a man harbors sharp and
bitter jealousies, envies, hatreds, though he never
express them by his tongue, or shape them by his
hand, they are there. Society, to be sure, is less
injured by their latent existence than it would be by
their overt forms. But the man himself is as much
injured by the cherished thoughts of evil, in his own
soul, as by the open commission of it, and sometimes
even more. For evil brought out ceases to disguise
itself, and seems as hideous as it is. But evil that
lurks and glances through the soul avoids analysis,
and evades detection.

There are many good-seeming men who, if all their
day's thoughts and feelings were to be suddenly devel-
oped into acts, visible to the eye, would run from
themselves, as men in earthquakes run from the fiery

292

HYPOClllSY.

gapings of the ground, and sulphurous cracks that
open the way to the uncooled center of perdition.

Pr^tensior* ! profession ! how haughtily they stride
into ihe kingdom of the lowly Redeemer, and usurp
the h;ghest seats, and put on the robes of sanctity, and
sirg the hymns of praise, and utter aloud, to be heard
of men, t ac prayers which the spirit ought to breathe
in silent and childlike confidence into the ear of the
listening and loving Father ! How they build high
domes of worship with velvety seats and golden altars
and censers and costly plate and baptismal fonts by the
side of squalid want and ragged poverty! How their
mocking prayers mingle with the cry of beggary, the
curse of blasphemy, the wail of pain and the lewd
laugh of sensuality ! How mournfully their organ
chants of praise, bought with sordid gold, go up from
the seats of worldliness and pride, and how reproach-
fully the tall steeples of cathedrals and synagogues and
churches look down on the oppression and pride and
selfishness which assemble below them, and the slavery,
poverty, and intemperance which pass and repass their
marble foundations! Oh! shade of religion, where art
thou? Spirit of the lowly bleeder on Calvary, hast
thou left this world in despair ? Comforter of the
mourning, dweller with the sinful, how long shall these
things be? Religion is made a show-bubble. Pride is
her handmaid, and selfishness her leader. What a
tawdry show they make! And who believes the sub-
stance is equal to the show, the root as deep as the tree
is high, the foundation as firm as the structure is

HYPOCRISY.

293

imposing? Nowhere does show more wickedly usurp
the dominion of substance than in the realm of religion.
In the world we might expect to see hypocrisy. But
the true religion is above the world. "My kingdom is
not of this world," said its founder. It has a world
of its own. It is built on substance. But men have
sought to make it a world of show, to carry the decep-
tion and Pharisaism of this world up into the Redeemer's
world, and palm them off there for the golden reality
that shall be admitted to heaven. But poorly will
hypocrisy pass at the bar of God. No coin but the true
one passes there. No gilding will hide the hollowness of
a false soul. No tawdry displays will avail with that
eye whose glance, like a sword, pierces to the heart.
All is open there : all hypocrisy, vanity; worse than
vanity ; it is sin. It is a gilded lie, a varnished cheat.
It is proof of the hollowness within, the sign of corrup-
tion. Yea, more ; it is itself corrupting ; a painted
temptation. It lures men away from the truth; wastes
their energies on a shadow ; wins their affections to
fading follies, and gives them a disrelish for the real,
the substantial, and enduring. Who can expect that
God will not hide in every hollow show intended to
deceive, a sharp two-edged sword that shall cut with
disappointment, and pierce with inward, wasting want?

294

FRETTING AND GRUMBLING.

Many very excellent persons, whose lives are honor-
able and whose characters are noble, pass numberless
hours of sadness and weariness of heart. The fault is
not with their circumstances, nor yet with their general
characters, but with themselves that they are miserable.
They have failed to adopt the true philosophy of life.
They wait for happiness to come instead of going to
work and making it ; and while they wait they torment
themselves with borrowed troubles, with fears, fore-
bodings, morbid fancies and moody spirits, till they are
all unfitted for happiness under any circumstances.
Sometimes they cherish unchaste ambition, covet some
fancied or real good which they do not deserve and
could not enjoy if it were theirs, wealth they have not
earned, honors they have not won, attentions they have
not merited, love which their selfishness only craves.
Sometimes they undervalue the good they do possess;
throw away the pearls in hand for some beyond thrir
reach, and often less valuable; trample the flowe^.
about them under their feet; long for some never seen,
but only heard or read of; and forget present duties
and joys in future and far-off visions. Sometimes they
shade the present with every cloud of the past, and
although surrounded by a thousand inviting duties and
pleasures, revel in sad memories with a kind of morbid
relish for the stimulus of their miseries. Sometimes,
forgetting the past and present, they live in the future,
not in its probable realities, but in its most improbable

FRETTING AND GRUMBLING.

295

visions and unreal creations, now of good and then of
evil, wholly unfitting their minds for real life and
enjoyments. These morbid and improper states of
mind are too prevalent among some persons. They
excite that nervous irritability which is so productive
of pining regrets and fretful complaints. They make
that large class of fretters who enjoy no peace them-
selves, nor permit others to enjoy it. In the domestic
circle they fret their life away. Everything goes wrong
with them because they make it so. The smallest
annoyances chafe them as though they were unbearable
aggravations. Their business and duties trouble them
as though such things were not good. Pleasure they
never seem to know because they never get ready to
enjoy it. Even the common movements of Providence
are all wrong with them. The weather is never as it
should be. The seasons roll on badly. The sun is
never properly tempered. The climate is always
charged with a multitude of vices. The winds are
everlastingly perverse, either too high or too low, blow-
ing dust in everybody's face, or not fanning them as
they should. The earth is ever out of humor, too dry
or too wet, too muddy or dusty. And the people are
just about like it. Something is wrong all the time1
and the wrong is always just about them. Their home
is the worst of anybody's; their street and their neigh*
borhood is the most unpleasant to be found ; nobody
else has so bad servants and so many annoyances as
they. Their lot is harder than falls to common mortals;
they have to work harder and always did; have less
and always expect to. They have seen more trouble

296

FRETTING AND GRUMBLING.

than other folks know anything about. They are never
so well as their neighbors, and they always charge all
their unhappiness upon those nearest connected with
them, never dreaming that they are themselves the
authors of it all. Such people are to be pitied. Of all
the people in the world they deserve most our compas-
sion. They are good people in many respects, very
benevolent, very conscientious, very pious, but, withal,
very annoying to themselves and others. As a general
rule, their goodness makes them more difficult to cure
of their evil. They cannot be led to see that they are
at fault. Knowing their virtues they cannot see their
faults. They do not, perhaps, overestimate their virtues;
but they fail to see what they lack, and this they always
charge upon others, often upon those who love them
best. They see others actions through the shadow of
their own fretful and gloomy spirits. Hence it is that
the}/ see their own faults as existing in those about
them, as a defect in the eye produces the appearance
of a corresponding defect in every object toward which
it is turned. This defect in character is more generally
the result of vicious or improper habits of mind, than
uny constitutional idiosyncrasy. It is the result of the
indulgence of gloomy thoughts, morbid fancies, inor-
dinate ambition, habitual melancholy a complaining,
fault finding disposition.

A fretting man or woman is one of the most unlov-
able objects in the world. A wasp is a comfortable
house - mate in comparison ; it only stings when dis-
turbed. But an habitual fretter buzzes if he don't
sting, with or without provocation. "It is better to

FRETTING AND GRUMBLING.

297

dwell in the corner of a house-top than with a brawling
woman and in a wide house." Children and servants
cease to respect the authority or obey the commands
of a complaining, worrisome, exacting parent or
master. They know that "barking dogs don't bite,"
and fretters do n't strike, and the}r conduct themselves
accordingly.

If we are faultless, we should not be so much
annoyed by the defects of those with whom we associ-
ate. If we were to acknowledge honest ly that we
have not virtue enough to bear patiently with our
neighbors' weaknesses, we should show our own imper-
fection, and this alarms our vanity.

He who frets is never the one who mends, heals,
or repairs evils; more, he discourages, enfeebles, and
too often disables those around him, who, but for the
gloom and depression of his company, would do good
work and keep up brave cheer. And when the fretter
is one who is beloved, whose nearness of relation to us
makes his fretting, even at the weather, seem almost
like a personal reproach to us, then the misery of it
becomes indeed insupportable. Most men call fretting
a minor fault, a foible, and not a vice. There is no
vice except drunkenness which can so utterly destroy
the peace, the happiness of a home. We never knew
a scolding person that was able to govern a family.
What makes people scold ? Because they cannot
govern themselves. How can they govern others ?
Those who govern well are generally calm. They are
prompt and resolute, but steady.

It is not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is

298

FRETTING AND GRUMBLING.

healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he
can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the
revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction.
Fear secretes acids, but love and trust are sweet juices*
The man or woman who goes through the world
grumbling and fretting, is not only violating the laws
of God, but is a sinner against the peace and harmony
of society, and is, and of right ought to be, shunned
accordingly. They are always in hot water, forever in
trouble. They throw the blame of their own misdeeds
and want of judgment upon others, and if one might
believe them, society would be found in a shocking
state. They rail at everything, lofty or lowly, and
when they have no grumbling to do they begin to
deprecate. They endeavor to make good actions seem
contemptible in other men's eyes, and try to belittle
every noble and praiseworthy enterprise by casting
suspicion upon the motives of those connected with it.
Such individuals, whether men or women, are an incu-
bus on any society, and the best way to paralyze their
efforts to create discord, is to ignore them altogether.
Let grumblers form a select circle by themselves. Let
them herd together; give them the cold shoulder when
they appear, and make them uncomfortable during
their sojourn, and if they cannot be cured they may be
more easily endured, and perhaps discover the error of
their ways and reform.

An Englishman dearly likes, says Punch, to grumble,
no matter whether he be right or wrong, crying or
laughing, working or playing, gaining a victory or
smarting under a national humiliation, paying or being

FAULT FINDING.

29£

paid — still he must grumble, and, in fact, he is never
so happy as when he is grumbling ; and, supposing
everything was to our satisfaction, (though it says a
great deal for our power of assumption to assume any
such absurd impossibility,) still he would grumble at
the fact of there being nothing for him to grumble
about.

There are two things about which we should never
grumble: the first is that which we cannot help, and
the other that which we can help

A man would get a very false notion of his standing
among his friends and acquaintances if it were pos-
sible— as many would like to have it possible — to
know what is said of him behind his back. One day
he would go about in a glow of self-esteem, and the
next he would be bowed under a miserable sense of
misapprehension and disgust. It would be impossible
for him to put this and that together and " strike
an average." The fact is, there is a strange human
tendency to take the present friend into present confi-
dence. With strong natures this tendency proves
often a stumbling-block; with weak natures it amounts
to fickleness. It is a proof, no doubt, of the universal
brotherhood ; but one has to watch, lest, in an unguarded

300

FAULT FINDING.

moment, it lead him into ever so slight disloyalty to the
absent.

Never employ yourself to discover the faults of
others — look to your own. You had better find out
one of your own faults than ten of }'our neighbor's.
When a thing does not suit you, think of some pleas-
ant quality in it. There is nothing so bad as it might
be. Whenever you catch yourself in a fault-finding
remark, say some approving one in the same breath,
and you will soon be cured. Since the best of us have
too many infirmities to answer for, says Dean Swift,
we ought not to be too severe upon those of others;
and, therefore, if our brother is in trouble, we ought
to help him, without inquiring over seriously what
produced it.

Those who have the fewest resources in themselves
naturally seek the food of their self-love elsewhere.
The most ignorant people find most to laugh at in
strangers; scandal and satire prevail most in small
places; and the propensity to ridicule the slightest or
most palpable deviation from what we happen to
approve, ceases with the progress of common sense
and decency. True worth does not exult in the faults
and deficiency of others; as true refinement turns
away from grossness and deformity, instead of being
tempted to indulge in an unmanly triumph over it.
Raphael would not faint away at the daubing of a
sign-post, nor Homer hold his head higher for being
in the company of a "great bard." Real power, real
excellence does not seek for a foil in imperfection; nor
fear contamination from coming in contact with that

FAULT FINDING.

301

which is coarse and homely. It reposes on itself, and
is equally free from envy and affectation. There are
some persons who seem to treasure up things that are
disagreeable, on purpose.

The tongue that feeds on mischief, the babbling, the
tattling, the sly whispering, the impertinent meddling,
all these tongues are trespassing on the community
constantly. The fiery tongue is also abroad, and being
set on fire of hell, scatters firebrands among friends,
sets families, neighborhoods, churches, and social circles
in a flame; and, like the salamander, is wretched when
out of the burning element. The black slandering
tongue is constantly preying upon the rose buds of
innocence and virtue, the foliage of merit, worth,
genius, and talent; and poisons, with its filth of innuen-
does and scum of falsehood, the most brilliant flowersr
the most useful shrubs, and the most valuable trees, in
the garden of private and public reputation. Not
content with its own base exertions, it leagues with
the envious, jealous, and revengeful tongues; and,
aided by this trio, sufficient venom is combined to
make a second Pandemonium; and malice enough to
fill it with demons. They can swallow perjury like
water, digest forgery as readily as Graham bread,
convert white into black, truth into falsehood, good
into evil, innocence into crime, and metamorphose
every thing which stands in the current of their
polluted and polluting breath.

I can understand how a boy that never had been
taught better might carry torpedoes in his pocket,
and delight to throw them down at the feet of passers

302

FAULT FINDING.

by and see them bound; but I can not understand how
an instructed and well-meaning person could do such
a thing. And yet there are men who carry torpedoes
all their life, and take pleasure in tossing them at
people. "Oh," they say, "I have something now,
and when I meet that man I will give it to him."
And they wait for the right company, and the right
circumstances, and then they out with the most dis-
agreeable things. And if they are remonstrated with,
they say, "It is true," as if that was a justification of
their conduct. If God should take all the things that
are true of }<ou, and make a scourge of them, and
whip you with it, you would be the most miserable
of men. But he does not use all the truth on you.
And is there no law of kindness? Is there no desire
to please and profit men? Have you a right to take
any little story that you can pick up about a man, and
use it in such a way as to injure him, or give him pain?
And yet, how many men there are that seem to enjoy
nothing so much as inflicting exquisite suffering upon
a man in this way, when he can not help himself?
Well, you know just how the devil feels. Whenever
he has done anything wicked, and has made somebody
very unhappy, and laughs, he feels just as, for the time
being, you feel when you have done a cruel thing, and
somebody is hurt, and it does you good.

By the rules of justice, no man ought to be ridiculed
for any imperfection, who does not set up for eminent
sufficiency in that wherein he is defective. If thou
would'st bear thy neighbor's faults, cast thy eyes upon
thine own.

FAULT FINDING.

303

It is easier to avoid a fault than to acquire a perfec-
tion. By others1 faults wise men correct their own.
He that contemns a small fault commits a great one.
The greatest of all faults is, to believe we have none.
Little minds ignore their own weakness, and carp at
the defects of the great; but great minds are sensible
of their own faults, and largely compassionate toward
inferiors.

Beecher says: "When the absent are spoken of,
some will speak gold of them, some silver, some iron,
some lead, and some always speak dirt; for they have
a natural attraction toward what is evil and think it
shows penetration in them. As a cat watching for
mice does not look up though an elephant goes by,
so they are so busy mousing for defects, that they let
great excellences pass them unnoticed. I will not say
that it is not Christian to make beads of others' faults,
and tell them over every day; I say it is infernal. If
you want to know how the devil feels, you do know
if you are such a one."

There are no such disagreeable people in the world
as those who are forever seeking their own improve-
ment, and disquieting themselves about this fault and
that ; while, on the other hand, there is an unconscious
merit which wins more good than all the theoretically
virtuous in the wide world.

What a world of gossip would be prevented, if it
was only remembered, that a person who tells you the
faults of others intends to tell others of your faults.
Every one has his faults; every man his ruling passion.
The eye that sees all things sees not itself. That man

oU4 ENVY.

hath but an ill life of it, who feeds, himself with the
faults and frailties of other people. Were not curiosity
the purveyor, detraction would soon be starved into
tameness.

To a pure, sensitive, and affectionate mind, every act
of finding fault, or dealing in condemnation, is an act
of pain. It is only when we have become callous to
the world, and strangers to the sentiments of compas-
sionate love, that we are able to play with unconcern
the parts of persecutors and slanderers, and that we
can derive any pleasure from malignity and revenge.
He who is the first to condemn, will be often the last
to forgive.

\

Envy's memory is nothing but a row of hooks to
hang up grudges on. Some people's sensibility is a
mere bundle of aversions, and you hear them display
and parade it, not in recounting the things they are
attached to, but in telling you how many things and
persons "they cannot bear."

Envy is not merely a perverseness of temper, but it
is such a distemper of the mind as disorders all the
faculties of it. It began with Satan; for when he fell
he could see nothing to please him in Paradise, and
envied our first parents when in innocence, and there-
fore tempted them to sin, which ruined them, and" all

ENVY.

305

the human race. Mr. Locke tells us that upon asking
a blind man what he thought scarlet was, he answered
he believed it was like the sound of a trumpet. He
was forced to form his conceptions of ideas which he
had not, by those which he had. In the same manner,
though an envious man cannot but see perfections, yet
having contracted the distemper of acquired blindness,
he will not own them, but is always degrading or mis-
representing things which are excellent. Thus, point
out a pious person, and ask the envious man what he
thinks of him, he will say he is a hypocrite, or deceit-
ful; praise a man of learning or of great abilities, and
he will say he is a pedant, or proud of his attainments;
mention a beautiful woman, and he will either slander
her chastity or charge her with affectation; show him
a fine poem or painting, and he will call the one "stiff,"
and the other a "daubing." In this way he depreciates
or deforms every pleasing object. With respect to
other vices, it is frequently seen that many confess and
forsake them ; but this is not often the case with respect
to this vice, for as the person afflicted with this evil
knows very well to own that we envy a man is to allow
him to be a superior, his pride will not therefore permit
him to make any concession, if accused of indulging
this base principle, but he becomes more violent against
the person envied, and generally remains incurable.

Like Milton's fiend in Paradise, he sees, undelighted,
all delight. The brightness of prosperity that sur-
rounds others, pains the eyes of the envious man more
than the meridian rays of the sun. It starts the involun-
tary tear, and casts a gloom over his mind. It brings
20

306

ENVY.

into action jealousy, revenge, falsehood, and the basest
passions of the fallen nature of man. It goads him
onward with a fearful impetus, like a locomotive ; and
often runs his car off the track, dashes it in pieces, and he
is left, bruised and bleeding. Like the cuttle-fish, he
emits his black venom for the purpose of darkening the
clear waters that surround his prosperous neighbors;
and, like that phenomenon of the sea, the inky sub-
stance is confined to a narrow circumference, and only
tends to hide himself. The success of those around
him throws him into convulsions, and, like a man with
the delirium tremens, he imagines all who approach
him demons, seeking to devour him. Like Haman, he
often erects his own gallows in his zeal to hang others.
His mind is like the troubled sea, casting up the mire
of revenge. "Dionysius, the tyrant,'1 says Plutarch,
"out of envy, punished Philoxenius, the musician,
because he could sing ; and Plato, the philosopher,
because he could dispute better than himself."
. Envy is a sentiment that desires to equal, or excel
the efforts of compeers; not so much by increasing our
own toil and ingenuity, as by diminishing the merit
due to the efforts of others. It seeks to elevate itself
by the degradation of others; it detests the sounds of
another's pra.^e, and deems no renown acceptable that
must be shared. Hence, when disappointments occur,
they fall, with unrelieved violence, and the sense of dis-
comfited rivalry gives poignancy to the blow.

How is envy exemplified ? A worm defiling the
healthful blossom — a mildew, blasting the promised
harvest. How true, yet how forbidding an image of

ENVY.

307

the progress of envy ! And would any rational creature
be willingly the worm that defiles the pure blossoms of
virtue, the mildew that blasts the promised harvest of
human talent, or of human happiness?

And what produces envy ? The excellence of another.
Humiliating deduction! Envy is, then, only the expres-
sion of inferiority — the avowal of deficiency — the
homage paid to excellence. Let pride, for once, be
virtue, and urge the extinction of this baneful passion,
since its indulgence can only produce shame and regret.
Envy is, unquestionably, a high compliment, but a most
ungracious one. An envious man repines as much at
the manner in which his neighbors live as if he main-
tained them. Some people as much envy others a good
name, as they want it themselves, and that is the
reason of it. Envy is fixed on merit; and, like a sore
eye, is offended with anything that is bright. Envy
increases in exact proportion with fame; the man that
makes a character makes enemies. A radiant genius
calls forth swarms of peevish, biting, stinging insects,
just as the sunshine awakens the world of flies. Virtue
is not secure against envy. Evil men will lessen what
they won't imitate. If a man is good, he is envied; if
evil, himself is envious. Envious people are doubly
miserable, in being afflicted with others' prosperity and
their own adversity.

Envy is a weed that grows in all soils and climates,
and is no less luxuriant in the country than in the court ;
is not confined to any rank of men or extent of fortune,
but rages in the breasts of all degrees. Alexander was
not prouder than Diogenes; and it may be, if we would

308

ENVY.

endeavor to suprise it in its most gaudy dress and
attire, and in the exercise of its full empire and tyranny,,
we should find it in schoolmasters and scholars, or in
some country lady, or the knight her husband; all
which ranks of people more despise their neighbors
than all the degrees of honor in which courts abound,
and it rages as much in a sordid affected dress as in all
the silks and embroideries which the excess of the age
and the folly of youth delight to be adorned with.
Since, then, it keeps all sorts of company, and wriggles
itself into the liking of the most contrary natures and
dispositions, and yet carries so much poison and venom
with it, that it alienates the affections from heaven, and
raises rebellion against God himself, it is worth our
utmost care co watch it in all its disguises and
approaches, that we may discover it in its first entrance
and dislodge it before it procures a shelter or retiring
place to lodge and conceal itself.

Envy, like a cold poison, benumbs and stupefies : and
thus, as if conscious of its own impotence, it folds its
arms in despair and sits cursing in a corner. When it
conquers it is commonly in the dark, by treachery and
undermining, by calumny and detraction. Envy is no
less foolish than detestable; it is a vice which, they say,
keeps no holiday, but is always in the wheel, and work-
ing upon its own disquiet. Envy, jealousy, scorpions
and rattlesnakes can be made to sting themselves to
death. He whose first emotion on the view of an
excellent production is to undervalue it, will never have
one of his own to show.

Reader, if envy is ranking in your bosom, declare

SLANDER.

309

war against it at once; a war of extermination; no
truce, no treaty, no compromise. Like the pirate on
the high seas, it is an outlaw, an enemy to all mankind,
and should be hung up at the yard arm until it is dead,

DEAD, DEAD.

" That abominable tittle-tattle,
The cud eschew'd by human cattle."

— Byron.

Slander is a blighting sirocco; its pestiferous
breath pollutes with each respiration; its forked
tongue is charged with the same poison; it searches
all corners of the world for victims; it sacrifices the
high and low, the king and the peasant, the rich and
poor, the matron and maid, the living and the dead;
but delights most in destroying worth, and immolating
innocence. Lacon has justly remarked, "Calumny
crosses oceans, scales mountains, and traverses deserts,
with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and, like
him, rides upon a poisoned arrow." As the Samiel
wind of the Arabian desert, not only produces death,
but causes the most rapid decomposition of the body;
so calumny affects fame, honor, integrity, worth, and
-virtue. The base, cloven-footed calumniator, like the
loathsome worm, leaves his path marked with the filth
of malice, and scum of falsehood, and pollutes the
fairest flowers, the choicest fruits, the most delicate
plants in a green-house of character. Living, he is a
traveling pest, and worse, dying impenitent, his soul is

310

SLANDER.

too deeply stained for hell. ^X)h, reader, never slander
the name of another. A writer once said: "So deep
does the slanderer sink in the murky waters of degrada-
tion and infamy, that could an angel apply an Archime-
dian moral lever to him, with heaven for a fulcrum, he
could not, in a thousand years, raise him to the grade
of a convict felon."

Slander ;

Whose edge is sharper than the sword ; whose tongue
Out- venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world : Kings, queens, and states,.
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters.

It is a melancholy reflection upon human nature, to
see how small a matter will put the ball of scandal in
motion. A mere hint, a significant look, a mysterious
countenance; directing attention to a particular person;
often gives an alarming impetus to this ignis fatuus*
A mere interrogatory is converted into an affirmative
assertion — the cry of mad dog is raised — the mass
join in the chase, and not unfrequently, a mortal
wound is inflicted on the innocent and meritorious,
perhaps by one who had no ill-will, or desire to do
wrong in any case.

There is a sad propensity in our fallen nature, to
listen" to the retailers of petty scandal. With many,
it is the spice of conversation, the exhilarating gas of
their minds. Without any intention of doing essential
injury to a neighbor, a careless remark, relative to
some minor fault of his, may be seized by a babbler*

SLANDER.

311

and, as it passes through the babbling tribe, each one
adds to its bulk, and gives its color a darker hue, until
it assumes the magnitude and blackness of base slan-
der. Few are without visible faults — most persons
are sometimes inconsistent. Upon these faults and
mistakes, petty scandal delights to feast.

Nor are those safe from the filth and scum of this
poisonous1 tribe, who are free from external blemishes.
Envy and jealousy can start the blood-hound of sus-
picion; create a noise that will attract attention; and
many may be led to suppose there is game, when there
is nothing but thin air. An unjust and unfavorable
innuendo is started against a person of unblemished
character; it gathers force as it is rolled through
babble town — it soon assumes the dignity of a prob-
lem— is solved by the rule of double position, and the
result increased by geometrical progression and permu-
tation of quantities; and before truth can get her shoes
on, a stain, deep and damning, has been stamped on
the fair fame of an innocent victim, by an unknown
hand. To trace calumny back to the small fountain
of petty scandal, is often impossible; and always more
difficult than to find the source of the Nile.

Insects and reptiles there are which fulfill the ends of
their existence by tormenting us; so some minds and
dispositions accomplish their destiny by increasing our
misery, and making us more discontented and unhappy.
Cruel and false is he who builds his pleasure upon my
pain, or his glory upon my shame.

Shun evil-speaking. Deal tenderly with the absent;
say nothing to inflict a wound on their reputation.

312

SLANDER.

They may be wrong and wicked, yet your knowledge
of it does not oblige you to disclose their character,
except to save others from injury. Then do it in a way
that bespeaks a spirit of kindness for the absent offender
Be not hasty to credit evil reports. They are often the
result of misunderstanding, or of evil design, or they
proceed from an exaggerated or partial disclosure of
facts. Wait and learn the whole story before you
decide; then believe just what evidence compels you to
and no more. But even then, take heed not to indulge
the least unkindness, else you dissipate all the spirit of
prayer for them and unnerve yourself for doing them
good. We are nearer the truth in thinking well of
persons than ill. Human nature is a tree bearing good
as well as evil, but our eyes are wide open to the latter
and half closed to the former. Believe but half the
ill and credit twice the good said of your neighbor.

A glance, a gesture, or an intonation, may be vital
with falsehood, sinking a heavy shaft of cruelty deep
into the injured soul — though truth, in its all-disclosing
effulgence^ will, sooner or later, disperse the mists and
doom the falsifier to deserved aversion ; still, the
exposure of the guilty does not recompense the injured
any more than the bruising of the serpent heals the
wound made by his barbed fang. An injurious rumor —
originating, perhaps, in some sportive gossip — once
attached to a person's name, will remain beside it a
blemish and doubt for ever. Especially is this true of
the fair sex, many of whom have, from this cause,
withered and melted in their voath like snow in
the spring, shedding burning tears of sadness over

SLANDEli.

313

the world's unkindness and "man's inhumanity to
man."

Among many species of animals, if one of their
number is wounded and falls, he is at once torn to
pieces by his fellows. Traces of this animal cruelty
are seen in men and women to-day. Let a woman fall
from virtue and nine-tenths of her sisters will turn and
tear her to pieces, and the next day smile on the man
who ruined her! The cruelty of woman to woman is
perfectly wolfish. O, shame ! Reverse the action.
Loathing for the unrepentant wretch and tenderness for
the wounded sister. Tenderness and pity and help for
both alike if they repent and reform. But never trust
him who has been a betrayer once. No kindness
demands this risk. The smell of blood is too strong*
for the tamed tiger.

There is a natural inclination in almost all persons to
do it — a kind of inhuman pleasure in pelting others
with stones. Our right hands ache to throw them.
There is such wicked enjoyment in seeing them dodge
and flinch and run. This is human nature in the rough.
There are so many who never get out of the rough.
There are multitudes of respectable people who evince
exquisite pleasure in making others smart. There is a
good deal of the Indian — the uncivilized man, in us all
yet. It has not been wholly eliminated or educated out
of us by the boasted enlightenment and civilization of
the age. A great deal of pharisaic zeal to stone others
who are no more guilty than we are still exists. It is
often by the crafty cry of astop thief" to divert atten-
tion from ourselves. A thief snatched a diamond ring

314

SLANDER.

from a jeweler's tray and dodged around the corner
into the crowded street. The clerk ran out crying
astop thief!" The rascal eluded attention by taking
up the cry and vociferating as if of one ahead, "stop
thief! stop thief!"

It takes a bloodthirsty wretch to be a prosecutor and
inquisitor. The vulture lives to disembowel his victim
and wet his beak in blood. Who ever heard of a dove
rending the breast of a robin, or a lamb sucking the
blood of a kid? Hawks and tigers delight in this. No!
nature will out. If Christianity has not cut off the
claws, we incline to scratch somebody. If Christ pos-
sesses us wholly, and we have been transformed by His
spirit, there will be no disposition to stone our neighbor,
even if at fault. It is not in the genius of Christianity
to do it. It is a cancer in the soul that must be cut
out, or burned out, or purged out of the blood, or it
will kill us.

Alexander had an ugly scar on his forehead, received
in battle. When the great artist painted his portrait,
he sketched him leaning on his elbow, with his finger
covering the scar on his forehead. There was the like*
ness with the scar hidden. So let us study to paint
each other with the finger of charity upon the scar of
a brother, hiding the ugly mark and revealing only the
beautiful, the true and the good.

VANITY.

315

This propensity pervades the whole human family
to a less or greater degree, as the atmosphere does the
globe. It is the froth and effervescence of pride. The
latter is unyielding haughtiness, the former, as soft,
pliant, and light, as the down of a goose. It is selfish-
ness modified and puffed up, like a bladder with wind.
It is all action, but has no useful strength. It feeds
voraciously and abundantly on the richest food that can
be served up; and can live on less and meaner dietr
than anything of which we can have a conception*.
The rich, poor, learned, ignorant, beautiful, ugly, high,
low, strong, and weak — all have a share of vanity.
The humblest Christian is not free from it, and, when^
he is most humble, the devil will flatter his vanity by
telling him of it.

Vanity is ever striving to hide itself, like the peacock,
its ugly feet, and will even deny its own name. "/
speak -without vanity" — hush — you deceitful puff.
You make men and women, the only animals that can
laugh, the very ones to be laughed at. Dr. Johnson
once remarked, "When any one complains of the want
of what he is known to possess in an eminent degree,
he waits, with impatience, to be contradicted;" and.
thus vanity converts him into a fool and a liar, only to*
render him ridiculous. Vanity engenders affectation,
mock modesty, and a train of such like et ceteras; all
subtracting from the real dignity of man.

On the other hand, it feeds, with equal voracity ora

-316 PRIDE.

vulgarity, coarseness, and fulsome eccentricity; every
thing by which the person can attract attention. It
often takes liberality by the hand, prompts advice,
administers reproof, and sometimes perches, visibly and
gaily, on the prayers and sermons in the pulpit. It is
an every where and ever present principle of human
nature — a wen on the heart of man; less painful, but
quite as loathsome as a cancer. It is, of all others, the
most baseless propensity.

We have nothing of which we should be vain, but
much to induce humility. If we have any good quali-
ties they are the gift of God; in the best of men there
are bad ones enough, if they can see themselves, to
•strangle vanity. Let every one guard against this all-
pervading principle, and teach their children that it is
the shadow of a shade.

He that is proud eats himself up. Pride is his own
glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and what-
ever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in
the praise. Pride is like an empty bag, and who can
stand such a thing upright? It is hollow and heart-
less; and, like a drum, makes the more noise from its
very emptiness. What is there in us to induce such a
sentiment? Who can say, with truth, "I am better
than my neighbor?" Some shrewd philosopher has

PRIDE

said, that if the best man's faults were written on his
forehead they would make him pull his hat over his.
eyes! Ah, there is so much of good in those who are
evil, and so much that is bad in the best, that it ill
becomes us to judge our neighbors harshly, or set our-
selves up for saints at their expense. Let those who-
feel above their fellows, view the heights above them-
selves, and realize their littleness ; for as there is none
so vile but that a viler hath been known, so there is no
saint but a holier can be named.

When one asked the philosopher what the great God
was doing? he replied, "His whole employment is to
lift up the humble, and to cast down the proud." And?
indeed, there is no one sin which the Almighty seems
more determined to punish than this. The examples
of God's displeasure against it are most strikingly
exhibited in the history of Pharaoh, Hezekiah, Hainan,
Nebuchadnezzar, and Herod.

Pride is generally the effect of ignorance; for pride
and folly attend each other. Ignorance and pride keep
constant company. Pride, joined with many virtuesr
chokes them all. Pride is the bane of happiness. Some
people, says L 'Estrange, are all quality. You would
think they were made of nothing but title and geneal-
ogy The stamp of dignity defaces in them the very
character of humanity, and transports them to such a
degree of haughtiness that they reckon it below them-
selves to exercise either good nature or good manners.
It is related of the French family of the Duke de Levis,
that they have a picture in their pedigree in which
Noah is represented going into the ark, and carrying a

318

PRIDE.

small trunk, on which is written, "Papers belonging to
the Levis family." Pride Is the mist that vapors round
insignificance. We can conceive of nothing so little
or ridiculous as pride. It is a mixture of insensibility
and ill-nature, in which it is hard to say which has the
largest share. Pride is as loud a beggar as want, and
a great deal more saucy. Knavery and pride are often
united; the Spartan boy was dishonest enough to steal
a fox, but proud enough to let the beast eat out his
vitals sooner than hazard detection. Pride breakfasted
with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and suppered with
Infamy. Pride had rather at any time go out of the
way than come behind.

Pride must have a fall. Solomon said, pride goeth
before destruction. Of all human actions, pride the
most seldom obtains its end; for while it aims at honor
and reputation, it reaps contempt and derision. Pride
and ill-nature will be hated in spite of all the wealth
and greatness in the world. Civility is always safe,
but pride creates enemies. As liberality makes friends
of enemies, so pride makes enemies of friends. Says
Dean Swift, "If a proud man makes me keep my dis-
tance, the comfort is, he at the same time keeps his."
Proud men have friends neither in prosperity, because
they know nobody; nor in adversity, because nobody
knows them. There is an honest pride, such as makes
one ashamed to do an evil act; such a degree of self-
esteem as makes one above doing an injury to any one ;
but it is the pride which sets one above his fellows that
we deprecate ; that spirit which would demand homage
to itself as better and greater than others. In the

PRIDE.

319

name of good sense, how can any one feel thus, when it
is realized that the entire life of a man is but a moment
in the scale of eternity; and that in a few short days,
at most, we must all go from here. When the soul is
about to depart, what avails it whether a man dies upor
a throne or in the dust?

Pride is a virtue — let not the moralist be scandal
ized — pride is also a vice. Pride, like ambition, is
sometimes virtuous and sometimes vicious, according
to the character in which it is found, and the object to
which it is directed. As a principle, it is the parent
of almost every virtue, and every vice — every thing
that pleases and displeases in mankind; and as the
effects are so very different; nothing is more easy than
to discover, even to ourselves, whether the pride that
produces them is virtuous or vicious: the first object
of virtuous pride is rectitude, and the next independ-
ence. Pride may be allowed to this or that degree,
else a man cannot keep up his dignity. In gluttony
there must be eating, in drunkenness there must be
drinking; 'tis not the eating, nor 'tis not the drinking
that must be blamed, but the excess. So in pride.

Pride and poverty, when combined, make a man's
life up-hill work. Pomposity in a hovel. A gaudy
parlor, meagre kitchen, and empty cupboard! Ragged
aristocracy! What shifts there are among this class
to hide their rags, and to give everything a golden
tinge. Among them you see a rich frosted cake and
red wine in the parlor, and a dry crust, dryer codfish,
and bad coffee in the kitchen. Broadcloth hides a
ragged shirt. Polished boots hide tattered stockings,

320

PRIDE.

Fortune's toys, she kicks them about as she likes.
The higher they look the lower they sink. The gaudy
side out, rags and starvation within. Oh! the pangs
of pride! What misery is here covered up. Smiles
abroad, tears at home. An eternal war with want on
one hand, and proud ambition on the other. This
trying to be "soinebod}T," and this forgetting that it
is not necessary to be gold-washed, and to have a
silver spoon in one's mouth, in order to reach that
envied good in life's journey There are plenty of
"somebodies" among the honest poor, and plenty of
"nobodies" among the dainty rich. Pride and poverty
are the most ill-assorted companions that can meet.
They live in a state of continual warfare, and the
sacrifices they exact from each other, like those
claimed by enemies to establish a hollow peace, only
serve to increase their discord.

Proud persons in general think of nothing but them-
selves, and imagine that all the world thinks about
them too. They suppose that they are the subject
of almost every conversation, and fancy every wheel
which moves in society hath some relation to them.
People of this sort are very desirous of knowing what
is said of them, and as they have no conception that
any but great things are said of them, the}^ are
extremely solicitous to know them, and often put
this question: "Who do men say that I am?"

Pride is the ape of charity. In show not much
unlike, but somewhat fuller of action; in seeking the
one, take heed thou light not upon the other. They
are two parallels never put asunder. Charity feeds the

PRIDE.

321

poor, so does pride; charity builds a hospital, so does
pride. In this they differ: charity gives her glory to
God, pride takes her glory from man. When flowers
are full of heaven-descended dews, they always hang
their heads; but men hold theirs the higher the more
they receive, getting proud as they get full.

Likeness begets love, yet proud men hate each other.
Pride makes us esteem ourselves ; vanity makes us
desire the esteem of others. It is just to say, that a
man is. too proud to be vain. The pride of wealth is
contemptible ; the pride of learning is pitiable ; the
pride of dignity is ridiculous; but the pride of bigotry
is insupportable. To be proud of knowledge, is to be
blind in the light; to be proud of virtue, is to poison
yourself with the antidote; to be proud of authority is
to make your rise your downfall. The sun appears
largest when about to set, so does a proud man swell
most magnificently just before an explosion.

No two feelings of the human mind are more opposite
than pride and humility. Pride is founded on a high
opinion of ourselves; humility on the consciousness of
the want of merit. Pride is the offspring of ignorance;
humility is the child of wisdom. Pride hardens the
heart; humility softens the temper and the disposition.
Pride is deaf to the clamors of conscience; humility
listens with reverence to the monitor within; and finally)
pride rejects the counsels of reason, the voice of expe-
rience, the dictates of religion; while humility, with a
docile spirit, thankfully receives instruction from all
who address her in the garb of truth. "Of all trees, n
says Feltham, "I observe God hath chosen the vine — -
21

322

PRIDE.

a low plant that creeps upon the helpful wall; of all
oeasts, the soft and pliant lamb; of all fowls, the mild
and guileless dove. When God appeared to Moses, it
was not in the lofty cedar, nor in the spreading palm,
but a bush, an humble, abject bush. As if he would,
by these selections, check the conceited arrogance of
man." Nothing produces love like humility; nothing
hate like pride. It was pride that changed angels into
devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

There are as good horses drawing in carts as in
coaches; and as good men are engaged in humble
employments as in the highest. The best way tc
humble a proud man is to take no notice of him. Men
are sometimes accused of pride, merely because their
accusers would be proud themselves if they were in
their places. There are those who despise pride with *
a greater pride. To quell the pride, even of the great-
est, we should reflect how much we owe to others, and
how little to ourselves. Other vices choose to be in the
dark, but pride loves to be seen in the light. The
common charge against those who rise above their
condition, is pride. Proud looks make foul work in
fair faces.

When a man's pride is thoroughly subdued, it is like
the sides of Mount yEtna. It was terrible while the
eruption lasted and the lava flowed; but when that is
past, and the lava is turned into soil, it grows vineyards
and olive trees up to the very top.

FOPS AND DANDIES. 323

ff0fr5 ttttl Smite*

Though great thy grandeur, man, may be,
No pride of heart is meant for thee ;
Let fools exult, presumption boast,
The fops and dandies dwell in hosts.

The rose of Florida, the most beautiful of flowers,
emits no fragrance; the bird of Paradise, the most
beautiful of birds, gives no songs; the cypress of
Greece, the finest of trees, yields no fruit; dandies,
the shiniest of men, generally have no sense; and ball-
room belles, the loveliest of created creatures, are
very often ditto. Dr. Holmes, in his "Autocrat of
the Breakfast Table," says: "Dandies are not good
for much, but they are good for something. They
invent or keep in circulation those conversational
blanks, checks or counters, which intellectual capital-
ists may sometimes find it worth their while to borrow
of them. They are useful, too, in keeping up the
standard of dress, which, but for them, would deteri-
orate and become, what some old folks would have it,
a matter of convenience, and not of taste and art.
Yes, I like dandies well enough — on one condition,
that they have pluck. I find that lies at the bottom
of all true dandyism."

A man, following the occupation of wood cutting,
wrought with exemplary zeal the six working days,
hoarding every cent not required to furnish him with
the most frugal fare. As his "pile" increased, he

324

FOPS AND LANDIE8.

invested it in gold ornaments — watch chains of massive
links, shirt and sleeve buttons, shoe buckles, then but*
tons for vest and coat, a hat band of the precious
metals, a heavy gold-headed cane — and, in short,
wherever an ounce of it could be bestowed upon his
person, in or out of taste, it was done. The glory of
his life, his sole ambition, was to don his curious attire
(which was deposited for safe keeping during the week
in one of the banks) on Sunday morning, and then
spend the day, the "observed of all observers," loung-
ing about the office or bar-room of the St. Charles.
He never drank, and rarely spoke. Mystery seemed
to envelope him. No one knew whence he came or
the origin of his innocent whim. Old citizens assured
you that, year after year, his narrow savings were
measured by the increase of his ornaments, until, at
length, the value of the anomalous garments came to
be estimated by thousands of dollars. By ten o'clock
on Sunday night, the exhibition was closed; his one
day of self-gratification enjoyed; his costly wardrobe
was returned to the bank vault, and he came back
into the obscurity of a wood chopper. Many may
think that this man was a fool, and very much unlike
the ordinary young man; but not so. Many young
men do the same, only their cloth, their gaudy apparel
are not so durable; and they are not so economical;
do not invest in so valuable material, but spend their
entire income (and sometimes more) just to carry a
stylish, shiney suit worth about fifty dollars.

There are a thousand fops made by art, for one fool
made by nature. How ridiculous a sight, says Dr.

FOPS AND DANDIES.

325

Fuller, is a vain young gallant, that bristles with his
plumes, and shakes his giddy head; and to no other
purpose than to get possession of a mistress who is as
much a trifle as himself! The little soul that converses
of nothing of more importance than the looking-glass
and a fantastic dress, may make up the show of the
world; but must not be reckoned among the rational
inhabitants of it. A man of wit may sometimes be a
•coxcomb; but a man of judgment and sense never can.
A beau dressed out, is like a cinnamon tree — the bark
is worth more than the body. An ass is but an ass,
though laden or covered with gold. Fops are more
attentive to what is showy than mindful of what is
necessary. A fop of fashion is said to be the mercer's
friend, the tailor's fool, and his own foe. Show and
substance are often united, as an object and its shadow,
the sun and its glory, the soul and body, mind and its
outward actions, love and its face of sweetness. And
on this account men have associated the two so closely
together as often to mistake the one for the other, and
hence have sought for show as though it was substance>
and deceivers have put the former in place of the latter
to cheat the world thereby.

Show paints the hypocrite's face and wags the liar's
tongue. To discriminate between show and substance,
to determine what is show and what is substance, and
what are substance and show, is a work of critical
judgment, and one upon which the excellency, majesty,
and strength of our life in no small degree depends.
There is show without substance, there is substance
without show, there is substance and show together.

326

FOPS AND BANDIES.

Dandies and fops are like a body without souly
powder without ball, lightning without thunderbolt. It
is dress on a doll, paint on sand. There is much of this
in the world. We see it in respect to every thing con-
sidered valuable. The counterfeiter gives the show of
gold to his base coin, and the show of value to his
lying bank note. The thief hangs out the appearance
of honesty on his face, and the liar is thunderstruck if
any body suspects him of equivocation. The bankrupt
carries about him the insignia of wealth. The fop puts
on the masquerade of dignity and importance, and the
poor belle, whose mother washes to buy her plumes,
outshines the peeress of the court. Many a table
steams with costly viands for which the last cent was
paid, and many a coat, sleek and black, swings on the
street and in the saloon on which the tailor has a moral
mortgage. Often do the drawing-room and parlor, the
wardrobe and coach, speak of wealth and standing
when, if they were not dumb deceivers, they would
cry out "It's all a lie." This is show without sub-
stance in domestic life. It is the grandest lie of the
world, and cheats more poor people out of their birth-
right than any other one species of wicked show. All
their thoughts, and labors, and money, and credit are
spent to fabricate a gorgeous cheat to the world, to
make themselves appear to be what they are not:
when, if they would be honest, and labor for the true
substance of life, they might be, in reality, what they
are clownishly aping. They cheat their souls out of
honesty, and a respectable and comfortable moral char-
acter, their bodies out of the substance of a good living

FASHION.

327

themselves out of a good name among their fellows;
yea, they cheat every thing but the very world they
intend to cheat. That world sees through their gossa-
mer show, and laughs at the foolishness which seeks to
conceal a want of substance.

It is a general sin, to which there are but few excep-
tions; a great falsehood, which almost every man is
striving to make greater. This great evil turns society
into a grand show room, in which the most dextrous
show-master wears the tallest plume. Besides the sin-
fulness of the thing, it is a great domestic bane. It
makes the poor poorer, and the rich more avaricious.
It causes almost every body to over-live, over-dress,,
over-eat, over-act in every thing that will make a
sthow. It is a great root of selfishness, a great weight
of oppression, a great sink of meanness," a great burden,
of woe, a g* eat cloud of despair.

No heathen god or goddess has ever had more-
zealous devotees than fashion, or a more absurd and
humiliating ritual, or more mortifying and cruel pen-
ances. Her laws, like those of the Medes and Persians,
must be implicitly obeyed, but unlike them, change, as
certainly as the moon. They are rarely founded in
reason, usually violate common sense, sometimes com-
mon decency, and uniformly common comfort.

328

FASHION.

Fashion rules the world, and a most tyrannical mis-
tress she is — compelling people to submit to the most
inconvenient things imaginable for her sake. She
pinches our feet with tight shoes, or chokes us with a
tight necker- chief, or squeezes the breath out of our
body by tight lacing. She makes people sit up by
night, when they ought to be in bed, and keeps them
in bed in the morning when they ought to be up and
doing. She makes it vulgar to wait upon one's self,
and genteel to live idly and uselessly. She makes
people visit when they would rather stay at home, eat
when they are not hungry, and drink when they are
not thirsty. She invades our pleasures and interrupts
our business. She compels people to dress gaily,
whether upon their own property or that of others — -
whether agreeably to the word of God or the dictates
of pride.

Fashion, unlike custom, never looks at the past as a
precedent for the present or future. She imposes unan-
ticipated burdens, without regard to the strength or
means of her hood-winked followers, cheating them out
of time, fortune and happiness; repaying them with the
consolation of being ridiculed by the wise, endangering
health and wasting means; a kind of remuneration
rather paradoxical, but most graciously received. Sem-
blance and shade are among her attributes. It is of
more importance for her worshipers to appear happy
than to be so.

Fashion taxes without reason and collects without
mercy. She first infatuates the court and aristocracy,
and then ridicules the poor if th ^y do not follow in the

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329

wake, although they die in the ditch. This was exem-
plified in the reign of Richard III., who was hump-
backed. Monkey -like, his court, at the dictum of
fashion, all mounted a bustle on their backs, and as this
was not an expensive adjunct, the whole nation became
hump-backed — emphatically a crooked generation —
from the peasant to the king, all were humped.

If she requires oblations from the four quarters of
the globe, they must be had, if wealth, health and
happiness are the price. If she fancies comparative
nakedness for winter, or five thicknesses of woollen for
dog days — she speaks, and it is done. If she orders
the purple current of life and the organs of respiration
to be retarded by steel, whalebone, buckram, drill, and
cords — it is done. Disease laughs and death grins at
the folly of the goddess and the zeal of the worship-
ers. If she orders a bag full of notions on the hips, a
Chinese shoe on the foot, a short cut, a trail, a hoop, or
balloon sleeve, or no sleeve, for a dress, and a grain fan
bonnet, or fool's cap for the head, she is obsequiously
obeyed by the exquisitely fashionable ladies and lauded
by their beaux. If she orders, her male subjects, the
Mordecais and Daniels, tremble at the gong sound of
trumpet-tongued ridicule. Not only the vain and giddy,
the thoughtless and rattlebrained, dance attendance
upon her, but many a statesman and philosopher.

The empress at Paris, or other ladies of rank, do
not originate the fashions, neither do any ladies of real
rank and distinction; they adopt them, and thus set
the seal of their acknowledged authority upon them,

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FASHION.

but no lady would be the first to wear a striking nov-
ehry, or a style so new, or so outre as to be likely to
attract public attention. This is left for the leaders
of the demi-monde, several of whom are in the pay
of Parisian dress-makers and modistes. The noted
Worth, the man-milliner of Paris, who receives all the
money and exercises all the impudence which have
placed him at the head of his profession, while women
do all the work, has in his employ a dozen fashion
writers and several of the most noted leaders of Paris-
ian society. These latter are selected for their fine
appearance and dashing manners. Toilettes, equipages
and boxes at the theater and opera are provided for
them. Dead or dying, they are required to show
themselves at these places on all suitable occasions, in
extraordinary dresses made by the "renowned" Worthy
as the fashion correspondents say, who in this way take
up the burden of the song, and echo it even upon these
Western shores. It is the height of ambition with
some American women to go to I aris, and have a
dress made by Worth; and dearly do they sometimes
pay for their folly, not only in immense prices for very
small returns, but in degrading their American woman-
hood by following in so disgraceful a scramble with so
mixed an assemblage.

Fashion is the foster mother of vanity, the offal of
pride, and has nursed her pet, until it is as fat as a sea
turtle, is quite as wicked to bite, and harder to kill;
but, unlike that inhabitant of the herring pond, instead
of keeping in a shell, it is mounted on a shell, adorned

FASHION.

331

with every flummery, intruding into all the avenues of
life, scattering misery far and wide — faithless, fearless,
uncompromising, and tyrannical.

Then the example of a fashionable woman, how low,
how vulgar! With her the cut of a collar, the depth
of a flounce, the style of a ribbon, is of more import-
ance than the strength of a virtue, the form of a mind,
or the style of a life. She consults the fashion-plate
oftener than her Bible; she visits the dry goods shop
and the milliner oftener than the church. She speaks
of fashion oftener than of virtue, and follows it closer
than she does her Savior. She can see squalid misery
and low-bred vice without a blush or a twinge of the
heart; but a plume out of fashion, or a table set in old
style, would shock her into a hysteric fit. Her exam-
ple! What is it but a breath of poison to the young?
[ had as soon have vice stalking bawdily in the pres-
ence of my children, as the graceless form of fashion.
Vice would look haggard and mean at first sight, but
fashion would be gilded into an attractive delusion.
Oh, fashion! how thou art dwarfing the intellect and
eating out the heart of our people! Genius is dying
on thy luxurious altar. And what a sacrifice! Talent
is withering into weakness in thy voluptuous gaze!
Virtue gives up the ghost at thy smile. Our youth
are chasing after thee as a wanton in disguise. Our
young women are the victims of thine all-greedy lust.
And still thou art not satisfied, but, like the devouring
grave, criest for more.

Friendship, its links must be forged on fashion's
anvil, or it is good for nothing. How shocking to be

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FASHION

friendly with an unfashionable lady! It will never do.
How soon one would lose caste! No matter if her
mind is a treasury of gems, and her heart a flower
garden of love, and her life a hymn of grace and praise,
it will not do to walk on the streets with her, or inti-
mate to anybody that you know her. No, one's intimate
friend must be a la mode. Better bow to the shadow
of a belle's wing than rest in the bosom of a "strong-
minded " woman's love.

And love, too, that must be fashionable. It would
be unpardonable to love a plain man whom fashion
could not seduce, whose sense of right dictated his life,
a man who does not walk perpendicular in a standing
collar, and sport a watch-fob, and twirl a cane. And
then to marry him would be death. He would be just
as likely to sit down in the kitchen as in the parlor; and
might get hold of the woodsaw as often as the guitar;
and very likely he would have the baby right up in his
arms and feed it and rock it to sleep. A man who will
make himself useful about his own home is so exceed-
ingly unfashionable that it will never do for a lady to
marry him. She would lose caste at once.

Abused women generally outlive fashionable ones.
Crushed and care-worn women see the pampered
daughters of fashion wither and die around them, and
wonder why death in kindness does not come to take
them away instead. The reason is plain: fashion kills
more women than toil and sorrow. Obedience to fashion
is a greater transgression of the laws of woman's nature,
a greater injury to her physical and mental constitution,
than the hardships of poverty and neglect. The slave-

FASHION.

333

woman at her tasks will live and grow old and see two
or three generations of her mistresses fade and pass
away. The washerwoman, with scarce a ray of hope
to cheer her in her toils, will live to see her fashionable
sisters all die around her. The kitchen maid is hearty
and strong, when her lady has to be nursed like a sick
baby. It is a sad truth, that fashion-pampered women
are almost worthless for all the great ends of human
life. They have but little force of character; they have
still less power of moral will, and quite as little physical
energy. They live for no great purpose in life; they
accomplish no worthy ends. They are only doll-forms
in the hands of milliners and servants, to be dressed and
fed to order. They dress nobody; they feed nobody;
they instruct nobody; they bless nobody, and save
nobody. They write no books ; they set no rich
examples of virtue and womanly life. If they rear
children, servants and nurses do it all, save to conceive
and give them birth. And when reared what are they?
What do they even amount to, but weaker scions of
the old stock? Who ever heard of a fashionable
woman's child exhibiting any virtue or power cf mind
for which it became eminent? Read the biographies
of our great and good men and women. Not one of
them had a fashionable mother. They nearly all sprung
from plain, strong-minded women, who had about as
little to do with fashion as with the changing clouds.

There is one fashion that never changes. The spark-
ling eye, the coral lip, the rose leaf blushing on the
cheek, the elastic step, are always in fashion. Health —
rosy, bouncing, gladsome health — is never out of fash-

334

DRESS.

ion ; what pilgrimages are made, what prayers are
uttered for its possession! Failing in the pursuit what
treasures are lavished in . concealing its loss or counter-
feiting its charms ! ( Reader, if you love freedom more
than slavery, liberty more than thraldom, happiness
more than misery, competence more than poverty,
never bow your knee to the goddess fashion.

Looking thus upon the panoramic field of God's
works, we must conclude that he has taken especial
care to gratify the varying tastes of his creatures.
And more than this, we must conclude that he himself
has an infinite taste, which finds an infinite pleasure in
making and viewing this magnificent universe of flash-
ing splendor and somber sweetness, this field on field,
system beyond system, far off where human eye can
never reach, all shining and moving in an infinite
variety of forms, colors and movements. Moreover,
we cannot but feel that God is a lover of dress. He
has put on robes of beauty and glory upon all his
works. Every flower is dressed in richness ; every
field blushes beneath a mantle of beauty; every star is
vailed in brightness; every bird is clothed in the habili-
ments of the most exquisite taste. The cattle upon
the thousand hills are dressed by the hand divine.
Who, studying God in his works, can doubt that he

DRESS.

335

will smile upon the evidence of correct taste manifested
by his children in clothing the forms he has made
them ?

To love dress is not to be a slave of fashion; to love
dress only is the test of such homage. To transact the
business of charity in a silk dress, and to go in a carriage
to the work, injures neither the work noi the worker.
The slave of fashion is one who assumes the livery of a
princess and then omits the errand of the good human
soul ; dresses in elegance and goes upon no good
errand, and thinks and does nothing of value to man
kind. It does, indeed, appear, that the woman of ou?
land is moving against all the old enemies of society*
She herself rises and is helping others.

Beauty in dress is a good thing, rail at it who may.
But it is a lower beauty, for which a higher beauty
should not be sacrificed. They love dress too much
who give it their first thought, their best time, or all
their money; who for it neglect the culture of mind or
heart, or the claims of others on their service; who
care more for their dress than their disposition; who
are troubled more by an unfashionable bonnet than a
neglected duty.

Female loveliness never appears to so good advan-
tage as when set off by simplicity of dress. No artist
ever decks his angels with towering feathers and gaudy
jewelry; and our dear human angels — if they would
make good their title to that name — should carefully
avoid ornaments which properly belong to Indian
squaws and African princesses. These tinselries may
serve to give effect on the stage, or upon the ball room

336

DMESS.

floor, but in daily life there is no substitute for the
charm of simplicity. A vulgar taste is not to be dis-
guised by gold and diamonds. The absence of a true
taste and refinement of delicacy cannot be compensated
for by the possession of the most princely fortune.
Mind measures gold, but gold cannot measure mind.
Through dress the mind may be read, as through the
delicate tissue the lettered page. A modest woman
will dress modestly ; a really refined and intelligent
woman will bear the marks of careful selection and
faultless taste.

A coat that has the mark of use upon it is a recom-
mendation to the people of sense, and a hat with too
much nap and too high lustre a derogatory circum*
stance. The best coats in our streets are worn on the
backs of penniless fops, broken down merchants, clerks
with pitiful salaries, and men that do not pay up. The
heaviest gold chains dangle from the fobs of gamblers
and gentlemen of very limited means ; costly ornaments
on ladies, indicate to the eyes that are well opened, the
fact of a silly lover or husband cramped for funds.
And when a pretty woman goes by in plain and neat
apparel, it is the presumption that she has fair expecta-
tions, and a husband that can show a balance in his
favor. For women are like books — too much gilding
makes men suspicious that the binding is the most
important part. The body is the shell of the soul, and
the dress is the husk of the body; but the husk gener-
ally tells what the kernel is. As a fashionably dressed
young lady passed some gentlemen, one of them raised
his hat, whereupon another, struck by the fine appear-

BUESS.

337

ance of the lady, made some inquiries concerning her>
and was answered thus: "She makes a pretty orna-
ment in her father's house, but otherwise is of no use.""

The love of beauty and refinement belong to every
true woman. She ought to desire, in moderation,
pretty dresses, and delight in beautiful colors and
graceful fabrics; she ought to take a certain, not too
expensive, pride in herself, and be solicitous to have
all belonging to her well-chosen and in good taste; to
care for the perfect ordering of her house, and har-
mony and fitness of her furniture, the cleanliness of
her surroundings, and good style of her arrangements:
she ought not to like singularity, either of habit or
appearance, or be able to stand out against a fashion
when fashion has become custom: she ought to make
herself conspicuous only by the perfection of her taste,,
by the grace and harmony of her dress, and unobtru-
sive good-breeding of her manners: she ought to set
the seal of gentlewoman on every square inch of her
life, and shed the radiance of her own beauty and
refinement on every material object about her.

The richest dress is always worn on the soul. The
adornments that will not perish, and that all men most
admire, shine from the heart through this life. God
has made it our highest, holiest duty to dress the soul
he has given us. It is wicked to waste it in frivolity.
It is a beautiful, undying, precious thing. If every
young woman would think of her soul when she looks
in the glass, would hear the cry of her naked mind
when she dallies away her precious hours at her toilet,
would listen to the sad moaning of her hollow heart?
22

338

DRESS.

as it wails through her idle, useless life, something
would be done for the elevation of womanhood. Com-
pare a well-dressed body with a well-dressed mind.
Compare a taste for dress with a taste for knowledge,
culture, virtue, and piety. Dress up an ignorant young
woman in the "height of fashion"; put on plumes and
flowers, diamonds and gewgaws; paint her face and
girt up her waist, and I ask you if this side of a painted
feathered savage, you can find any thing more unpleas-
ant to behold. And yet just such young women we
meet by the hundred every day on the street and in
all our public places. It is awful to think of. Why is
it so? It is only because woman is regarded as a doll
to be dressed — a plaything to be petted — a house
ornament to exhibit — a thing to be used and kept
from crying with a sugar-plum show.

What multitudes of young women waste all that is
precious in life on the Unified fooleries of the toilet.
How the soul of womanhood is dwarfed and shriv-
elled by such trifles, kept away from the great fields
of active thought and love by the gewgaws she hangs
on her bonnet ! How light must be that thing which
will float on the sea of passion — a bubble, a feather,
a puff-ball! And yet multitudes of women float there,
live there, and call it life. Poor things! Scum on the
surface! But there is a truth, young women; woman
was made for a higher purpose, a nobler use, a grander
destiny. Her powers are rich and strong; her genius
bold and daring. She may walk the fields of thought,
achieve the victories of mind, spread around her the
testimonials of her worth, and make herself known

DBES8.

339

and felt as man's co-worker and equal in whatsoever
exalts mind, embellishes life, or sanctifies humanity.

The true object and importance of taste in dress few
understand. Let no woman suppose that any man can
be really indifferent to her appearance. The instinct
may be deadened in his mind by a slatternly, negligent
mother, or by plain maiden sisters; but she may be
sure it is there, and, with little adroitness, capable of
revival. Of course, the immediate effect of a well-
chosen feminine toilet operates differently in different
minds. In some, it causes a sense of actual pleasure;
in others, a consciousness of passive enjoyment. In
some, it is intensely felt while it is present; in others
only missed when it is gone.

Dress affects our manners. A man who is badly
dressed feels chilly, sweaty, and prickly. He stam-
mers, and does not always tell the truth. He means
to, perhaps, but he can't. He is half distracted about
his pantaloons, which are much too short, and are con-
stantly hitching up; or his frayed jacket and crumpled
linen harrow his soul, and quite unmans him. He
treads on the train of a lady^s dress, and says "Thank
you," sits down on his hat, and wishes the "desert were
his dwelling place."

A friend of ours, who had long been absent, returned
and called upon two beautiful young ladies of his
acquaintance. One came quickly to greet him in the
neat, yet not precise attire, in which she was perform-
ing her household duties. The other, after the lapse
of half an hour, made her stately entrance, in all the
primness of starch and ribbons, with which, on the

340

CHURCH DRESS.

announcement of his entrance, she had hastened to
bedeck herself. Our friend, who had long been hes-
itating on his choice between the two, now hesitated
no longer. The cordiality with which the first has-
tened to greet him, and the charming carelessness of
her attire, entirely won his heart. She is now his
wife. Young ladies, take warning from the above,
and never refuse to see a friend because you have on
a wash gown. Be assured the true gentleman will not
think less of you because he finds you in the perform-
ance of your duties, and not ashamed to let it be
known. Besides, there may positively be a grace, a
witching wildness about an every-day dress, that adds
to every charm of face and feature.

The best bred people of every Christian country, but
our own, avoid all personal display when engaged in
worship and prayer. Our churches, on the contrary,
are made places for the exhibition of fine apparel and
other costly, flaunting compliances with fashion; by
those who boast of superior wealth and manners. We
shall leave our gewgawed devotees to reconcile humilia-
tion in worship with vanity in dress. That is a problem
which we confess we have neither the right nor the
capacity to solve. How far fine clothes may affect the
personal piety of the devotee we do not pretend even

CHURCH DRESS.

341

to conjecture; but we have a very decided opinion in
regard to their influence upon the religion of others.
The fact is, that our churches are so fluttering with
birds of fine feathers, that no sorry fowl will venture in.
It is impossible for poverty in rags and patches, or even
in decent but humble costume, to take its seat, if it
should be so fortunate as to find a place, by the side of
wealth in brocade and broadcloth. The poor are so
awed by the pretension of superior dress and "the
proud man's costume," that they naturally avoid too
close a proximity to them. The church being the only
place on this side of the grave designed for the rich
and the poor to meet together in equal prostration
before God, it certainly should always be kept free for
this common humiliation and brotherhood. It is so in
most of the churches in Europe, where the beggar in
rags and wretchedness, and the wealthiest and most
-eminent, whose appropriate sobriety of dress leaves
them without mark of external distinction, kneel down
together, equalized by a common humiliation before
the only Supreme Being.

No person can attend upon the services of any of
our churches in towns and cities, and worship God with-
out distraction. One needs continually to offer the
prayer "take off my eyes from beholding vanity." But
he must be blind to have his prayer answered, for the
sight of the eyes always affects the heart. There is
the rustle of rich silks, the flutter of gay fans, the nod-
ding of plumes and flowers; the tilting of laces, of
aibbons, of curls; here is a head frizzed till it looks
more like a picture of the Furies than that of a Miss

342

MANNERS

of "sweet sixteen," and there is another with hair
hanging full length, waxed and dressed so as to four-
fold its quantity; there are bracelets and ear-rings, and
fantasies of every sort and every hue; everything that
is absurd and foolish in fashion, and everything that is
grotesque and ridiculous in trying to ape fashion; all
these are before you, between you and the speaker, the
altar whereon is laid the sacrifice of prayer, and from
whence the truth is dispensed! How can you worship
God? how can you hear with any profit?

With dress and fashion, its propriety, its sin or folly,
in the abstract, we are not now dealing; only with its
improper display in the house of God. If persons have
the taste, and the means to gratify that taste, in expen-
sive, showy apparel, let them have it to display at
home, or abroad, at parties, at the opera — anywhere,
but in the sanctuary.

The adoption of more simple apparel for church on
the part of the rich, in this country, would have the
effect, certainly not of diminishing their own personal
piety, but probably of increasing the disposition for
religious observance on the part of the poor.

Manners are different in every country; but true
politeness is everywhere the same. Manners, which
take up so much of our attention, are only artificial

MANNERS.

343

helps which ignorance assumes in order to imitate
politeness, which is the result of good sense and good
nature. A person possessed of those qualities, though
he had never seen a court, is truly agreeable; and if
without them, would continue a clown, though he had
been all his life a gentleman usher. He who assumes
airs of importance exhibits his credentials of insignifi-
cance. There is no policy like politeness; and a good
manner is the best thing in the world to get a good
name, or to supply the want of it. Good manners are
a part of good morals, and it is as much our duty as
our interest to practice in both. Good manners is the
art of making those around us easy. Whoever makes
the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred man in
the company. Good manners should begin at home.
Politeness is not an article to be worn in all dress only,
to be put on when we have a complimentary visit. A
person never appears so ridiculous by the qualities he
has, as by those he affects to have. He gains more by
being contented to be seen as he is, than by attempting
to appear what he is not. Good manners is the result
of much good sense, some good nature, and a little
self-denial, for the sake of others, and with a view to
obtain the same indulgence from them. "Manners
make the man," says the proverb. It may be true that
some men's manners have been the making of them;:
but as manners are rather the expression of the man,
it would be more proper to say — the man makes the
manners. Social courtesies should emanate from the
heart, for remember always that the worth of manners
consists in being the sincere expressions of feelings*

344

MANNERS.

Like the dial of the watch, they should indicate that
the work within is good and true.

The young should be mannerly, but they feel timid,
bashful and self-distrustful the moment they are ad-
dressed by a stranger, or appear m company. There
is but one way to get over this feeling, and acquire
easy and graceful manners, and that is to do the best
they can at home as well as abroad. Good manners
are not learned so much as acquired by habit. They
grow upon us by use. We must be courteous, agree-
able, civil, kind, gentlemanly, and manly at home, and
then it will become a kind of second nature every-
where. A coarse rough manner at home begets a
habit of roughness, which we cannot lay off if we try,
when we go among strangers. The most agreeable
persons in company are those who are the most agree-
able at home. Home is the school for all the best
things.

Good manners are an essential part of life-education,
and their importance cannot be too largely magnified,
when we consider that the}' are the outward expression
of an inward virtue And how often is this exhibition
of the virtues of frankness, gentleness and sweet sim-
plicity, the safest and surest recommendation of those
who come to us as strangers in quest of friendly aid.
It is quite marvelous, from the fact that by no special
training, no aristocratic examples, no conventionalities
but those of nature, the gifts of good sense, a true
sense of propriety and native tact, are sufficient qualifi-
cations to enable us to glide freely and irreproachably
among the elaborated subjects of a regal court, A

MANNERS. 345

foreigner once remarked to me, "An American is
received in any circle in England," but were we boorish
in manner, and without mental accomplishments, this
privilege would not be accorded us.

The true art of being agreeable is to appear well
pleased with all the company, and rathci to seem well
entertained with them, than to bring entertainment to
them. A man thus disposed, perhaps, may not have
much sense, learning, nor any wit , but if he has common,
and something friendly in his behavior, it conciliates
men's minds more than the brightest parts without this
disposition; it is true indeed that we should not dis-
semble and flatter in company; but a man may be
very agreeable, strictly consistent with truth and sin-
cerity, by a prudent silence where he cannot concur,
and a pleasing assent where he can Now and then
3^ou meet with a person so exactly formed to please
that he will gain upon every one that hears or beholds
him; this disposition is not merely the gift of nature,
but frequently the effect of much knowledge of the
world, and a command over the passions.

It is unfortunate that the agreeable should be so
often found in unison with the frivolous, for frivolity
makes great encroachments upon dignity.

Levity of manners is prejudicial to every virtue.
Avoid all sourness and austerity of manners. Virtue
is a pleasant and agreeable quality, and gay and civil
wisdom is always engaging.

There are a thousand pretty, engaging little ways,
which every person may put on9 without running the
risk of being deemed either affected or foppish. The

346

MANNERS.

sweet smile ; the quiet, cordial bow ; the earnest
movement in addressing a friend — more especially
a stranger — whom one may recommend to our good
regards; the inquiring glance; the graceful attention,
which is so captivating when united with self-posses-
sion; these will secure us the good regards ot even a
churl. Above all, there is a certain softness of manner
which should be cultivated, and which, in either man
or woman, adds a charm that always entirely compen-
sates for a lack of beauty.

Lord Chatham, who was almost as remarkable for
his manners as for his eloquence and public spirit, has
thus defended good breeding: "Benevolence is trifles,
or a preference of others to ourselves in the little daily
occurrences of life."

Says Emerson, "I wish cities would teach their best
lesson — of quiet manners." It is the foible especially
of American youth — pretension. The mark of the
man of the world is absence of pretension. He does
not make a speech ; he takes a low business tone,
avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not
at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs
his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name,
and so takes irom evil tongues their sharpest weapon.
His conversation clings to the weather and the news,
yet he allows himself to be surprised into thought, and
the unlocking of his learning and philosophy.

One of the most marked tests of character is the
manner in which we conduct ourselves toward others.
A graceful behavior toward superiors, inferiors, and
equals, is a constant source of pleasure. It pleases

MANNERS.

347

others because it indicates respect for their personality,,
but it gives tenfold more pleasure to ourselves. Every
man may to a large extent be a self-educator in good
behavior, as in everything else; he can be civil and
kind, if he will, though he have not a penny in his
purse.

If dignity exists in the mind, it will not be wanting
in the manners. When no seat was offered to the
Indian chief Tecumseh, in the council, and he ex-
claimed, in a spirit of elevated but offended pride, (at
the same time wrapping his blanket around him).
"The sun is my father, and the earth is my mother, I
will recline upon her bosom," and then seated himself
upon the ground, he displayed a striking instance of
genuine and manly dignity. He might have stood for
centuries, making Parisian attitudes and grimaces,

"With studied gestures or well-practised smiles,"

and not have been half so noble, commanding and dig-
nified, as by this sublime expression and this simple act.

Dr. Hall says: "The language of a man is a reason-
ably good index of his character: the trifler abounds
in slang words and slang phrases; the vulgar and low-
bred use most glibly the depreciative adjective; they
revel in the expletives of liar, scoundrel, swindler; the
educated, the cultivated, and the refined, speak softly,
quietly, gently; every word is uttered with composure,
even under circumstances of aggravation; if annoyed,
their severest reproof is expressive silence; and always
they maintain their self-respect."

Manners are the ornament of action; and there is a

MANNERS.

way of speaking a kind word, or of doing a kind thing,
which greatly enhances their value, What seems to
be done with a grudge, or as an act of condescension,
is scarcely accepted as a favor. Yet there are men
who pride themselves upon their gruffness; and though
they may possess virtue and capacity, their manner is
often formed to render them almost insupportable. It
is difficult to like a man who, though he may not pull
your nose, habitually wounds your self-respect, and
takes a pride in saying disagreeable things to you.
There are others who are dreadfully condescending,
&nd cannot avoid seizing upon every small opportunity
of making their greatness felt.

The cultivation of manner — though in excess it is
foppish and foolish — is highly necessary in a person
who has occasion to negotiate with others in matters
of business. Affability and good-breeding may even
be regarded as essential to the success of a man in
any eminent station and enlarged sphere of life; for
the want of it has not unfrequently been found in a
great measure to neutralize the results of much indus-
try, integrity, and honesty of character. There are,
no doubt, a few strong tolerant minds which can bear
with defects and angularities of manner, and look only
to the more genuine qualities; but the world at large
is not so forbearant, and cannot help forming its
judgments and likings mainly according to outward
conduct.

Agreeable manners contribute wonderfully to a
man's success. Take two men, possessing equal
advantages in every other respect; but let one be

MANNERS.

340

gentlemanly, kind, obliging and conciliating; the
other disobliging, rude, harsh and insolent, and the
one will become rich while the other will starve.

Good manners are not only an embellishment to
personal charms, but an excellent substitute for them
when they do not exist. When the attractions of
beauty have disappeared, there should be an elegance
and refinement of manners to supply their place.
Beauty is the gift of nature, but manners are acquired
by cultivation and practice; and the neglect of them is
seldom pardoned by the world, which exacts this defer-
ence to its opinions, and this conformity to the least
mistakable of its judgments.

The accomplishments so much esteemed in some
parts of the world, may be disregarded elsewhere,
but wisdom and virtue, intelligence and worth, are
universally respected and appreciated, and exhibit that
kind of deportment which is everywhere approved and
honored.

If Christianity had no higher recommendation than
this, that it makes a man a gentleman, it would still
be an invaluable element. The New Testament incul-
cates good manners. Our Savior was courteous even
to his persecutors. Look at Paul before Agrippa!
His speech is a model of dignified courtesy as well as
of persuasive eloquence. A spirit of kindly consider-
ation for all men characterized the Twelve, The same
mild, self-sacrificing spirit which pervaded the sayings
and doings of the early disciples is exhibited by the
true followers of the cross at the present day. A
man, it is true, may be superficially polite without

350

THE TRUE GENTLEMAN.

being a Christian; but a Christian, by the very con-
ditions of his creed and the obligations of his faith, is
necessarily in mind and soul — and therefore in word
and act — a gentleman

When you have found a man, you have not far to
go to find a gentleman. You cannot make a gold ring
out of brass. You cannot change a Cape May crystal
to a diamond. You cannot make a gentleman till you
first find a man.

To be a gentleman is not sufficient to have had a
grandfather. To be a gentleman does not depend on
the tailor or the toilet. Blood will degenerate. Good
clothes are not good habits.

A gentleman is a man who is gentle. Titles, graceful
accomplishments, superior culture, princely wealth, great
talents, genius, do not constitute a man with all the
attributes needed to make him a gentleman. He may
be awkward, angular, homely, or poor, and yet belong
to the uncrowned aristocracy. His face may be bronzed
at the forge or bleached in the mill, his hand huge and
hard, his patched vest, like Joseph's coat of many
colors, and he may still be a true gentleman. The
dandy is a dry goods sign, and not a gentleman, for he
depends upon dress and not upon his honor and virtue,

THE TRUE GENTLEMAN.

351

for his passport to the best circles of society. "The
man who has no money is poor, he who has nothing
but money is poorer than he," and is not a gentleman,
Some of the most distinguished men in the world of
letters, in the world of art, have been unamiable, gross
vulgar, ungentle, consequently not gentlemen.

There is true dignity in labor, and no true dignit}
without it. He who looks down scornfully on labor is
like Hermes, who had a mouth and no hands, and yet
made faces at those who fed him — mocking the fingers
that brought bread to his lips.

He who writes a book, or builds a house, or tills a
farm, or follows any useful employment, lives to some
purpose, and contributes something to the fund of
human happiness.

Garibaldi, the greatest hero of the age, is a working
man. Henry Clay was "the mill-boy of the slashes."
Daniel Webster knit his iron frame into strength by
working on his father's farm when young.

A gentleman is a human being, combining a woman's
tenderness with a man's courage.

A gentleman is just a gentleman: no more, no less;
a diamond polished that was first a diamond in the
rough. A gentleman is gentle. A gentleman is modest.
A gentleman is courteous. A gentleman is slow to take
offense, as being one who never gives it. A gentleman
is slow to surmise evil, as being one who never thinks
it. A gentleman subjects his appetites. A gentleman
refines his taste. A gentleman subdues his feelings.
A gentleman controls his speech. A gentleman deems
every other better than himself.

352

THE TRUE GENTLEMAN.

Sir Philip Sydney was never so much of a gentle-
man— mirror though he was of English knighthood —
as when, upon the field of Zutphen, as he lay in his
own blood, he waived the draught of cool spring water ?
that was to quench his dying thirst, in favor of a dying
soldier.

St. Paul describes a gentleman when he exhorted the
Philippian Christians: "Whatsoever things are true?
whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are
lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there
be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think of these
things." And Dr. Isaac Barlow, in his admirable ser-
mon on the callings of a gentleman, pointedly says:
" He should labor and study to be a leader unto virtue,
and a notable promoter thereof; directing and exciting
men thereto by his exemplary conversation; encourag-
ing them by his countenance and authority; rewarding
the goodness of meaner people by his bounty and favor;
he should be such a gentleman as Noah, who preached
righteousness by his words and works before a profane
world."

One very frequently hears the remark made, that
such and such a man "can be a gentleman when he
pleases." Now when our reader next hears this expres-
sion made use of, let him call to mind the following:
He who "can be a gentleman when he pleases," never
pleases to be anything else.

A gentleman, like porcelain ware, must be painted
before it is glazed. There can be no change after it is
burned in.

The sword of the best-tempered metal is the most

THE TRUE GENTLEMAN.

353

flexible, so the truly generous are the most pliant and
courteous in their behavior to their inferiors.

The true gentleman is one whose nature has been
fashioned after the highest models. His qualities depend
not upon fashion or manners, but upon moral worth —
not on personal possessions, but on personal qualities.
The psalmist briefly describes him as one "that walketh
uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the
truth in his heart."

The gentleman is eminently distinguished by his self-
respect. He values his character — not so much of it
only as can be seen by others, but as he sees it himself,
having regard for the approval of his inward monitor.
And, as he respects himself, so, by the same law, does
he respect others. Humanity is sacred in his eyes, and
thence proceed politeness and forbearance, kindness and
charity.

The true gentleman has a keen sense of honor —
scrupulously avoiding mean actions. His standard of
probity in word and action is high. He does not shuffle
nor prevaricate, dodge nor skulk; but is honest, upright,
and straightforward. His law is rectitude — action in
right lines. When he says yes, it is a law; and he
dares to say the valiant no at the fitting season. The
gentleman will not be bribed; only the low-minded and
unprincipled will sell themselves to those who are
interested in buying them.

Riches and rank have no necessary connection with
genuine gentlemanly qualities. The poor man may be
a true gentleman — in spirit and in daily life. He may
be honest, truthful, upright, polite, temperate, courage-
23

354

WIT.

ous, self-respecting and self-helping — that is, be a true
gentleman. The poor man with a rich spirit is in all
ways superior to the rich man with a poor spirit. To
borrow St. Paul's words, the former is as "having
nothing, yet possessing all things," while the other,
though possessing all things, has nothing. The first
hopes everything and fears nothing; the last hopes
nothing and fears everything. Only the poor in spirit
are really poor. He who has lost all, but retains his
courage, cheerfulness, hope, virtue and self-respect, is a
true gentleman,

V Ui r With - -%f

Sense is our helmet — wit is but a plume ;
The plume exposes — 'tis our helmet saves.

— Young.

Genuine wit may be compared to a kaleidoscope;
every time it is shaken, it presents new and beautiful
figures. The latter pleases the eye, and enables carpet
and calico manufacturers to obtain new designs for
their work; the former pleases us all over, without
really benefiting us any where. Like lightning in a
dark night, its illuminations are momentary in most
cases. Sheridans and Hopkinsons are very rare. They
were as highly charged with wit, as a cloud sometimes
is with the electric fluid, emitting flashes in such quick
succession, that darkness is scarcely visible.

WIT.

355

Wit, like a coquette, is pleasing company for the
time being; but no man, knowing her character, courts
her with the intention of marriage, and no sensible
man is long edified with her company.

He who endeavors to oblige the company by his
good-nature never fails of being beloved; he who
strives to entertain it by his good sense never fails
of being esteemed; but he who is continually aiming
to be witty, generally miscarries of his aim; his aim
and intention is to be admired, but it is his misfortune
either to be despised or detested — to be despised for
want of judgment, or detested for want of humanity.
For we seldom admire the wit when we dislike the
man. There are a great many to whom the world
would be so charitable as to allow them to have a
tolerable share of common sense; if they did not set
up for something more than common, something very
uncommon, bright, and witty. If we wou]d trace the
faults of conversation up to their original source, most
of them might, I believe, be resolved into this, that
men had rather appear shining than be agreeable in
company. They are endeavoring to raise admiration
instead of gaining love and good-will, whereas the
latter is in everybody's power, the former in that of
very few.

There is as much difference between wit and wisdom,
as between the talent of a buffoon and a statesman.
Wit is brushwood, judgment is timber. The one
gives the greatest flame, the other yields the most
durable heat; and both meeting makes the best fire.

Wit and wisdom may be found in the same person

356

WIT.

but when the former is flashing, its glare hides the
latter. It serves to amuse and exhilarate, but rarely
produces profitable reflection, or elevates sound com-
mon sense. It is emphatically a plume, and exposes
the head it ornaments, to many an arrow from the bow
of revenge. Some wits had rather lose a friend than
a keen, cutting remark upon him. This has often
occurred, and is exchanging treasure for trash. Wit
may obtain many conquests, but no willing subjects.
It is like echo, it always has the last word. It is more
difficult to manage than steam, and often wounds by
its explosions. It produces- many bon mots, and but
few wise sayings. It is like some heartless sportsmen,
who shoot every bird indiscriminately, and kill more
innocent ones, unfit for food, than hawks, that prey
upon our poultry.

Wit loses its respect with the good when seen in
company with malice; and to smile at the jest which
plants a thorn in another's breast, is to become a
principal in the mischief.

Finally, flashing wit is an undefined and undefmable
propensity — more to be admired than coveted; more
ornamental than useful; more volatile than solid; a
dangerous, sharp-edged tool, often cutting its most
skillful master; rarely imparting substantial benefits
to mankind; but often serious injury.

Let your wit rather serve you for a buckler to
defend yourself, by a handsome reply, than the sword
to wound others, though with never so facetious a
reproach, remembering that a word cuts deeper than
a sharper weapon, and the wound it makes is longer

TRUTH.

357

curing. Let those who have it, endeavor to control it,
and those who have it not, can make better use of the
sense they have.

God is the author of truth, the devil the father of
lies. If the telling of a truth shall endanger thy life,
the author of truth will protect thee from the danger,
or reward thee for thy damage. If the telling of a lie
may secure thy life, the father of lies will beguile thee
of thy gains, or traduce the security. Better by losing
of a life to save it, than by saving of a life to lose it.
However, better thou perish than the truth.

Herodotus tells us, in the first book of his history,
that from the age of five years to that of twenty, the
ancient Persians instructed their children only in three
things, viz.: to manage a horse, to shoot dexterously
with the bow and to speak the truth. Which shows of
how much importance they thought it to fix this
virtuous habit on the minds of youth betimes.

The smallest dew drop on the meadow at night has
.a star sleeping in its bosom, and the most insignificant
passage of Scripture has .in it a shining truth. Truth
bears the impress of her own divinity, and, though
reason may not be able to take cognizance of the fact,
she may be filling the chambers of the soul with a light
and glory that is not born of earth.

358

TRUTH.

The study of truth is perpetually joined with the
love of virtue, for there's no virtue which derives not
its original from truth, as, on the contrary, there is no-
vice which has not its beginning from a lie. Truth is.
the foundation of all knowledge and the cement of all
society.

The adorer of truth is aLjve all present things-
Firm in the midst of temptation, and frank in the midst
of treachery, he will be attacked by those who have
prejudices, simply because he is without them, decried
as a bad bargain by all who want to purchase, because
he alone is not to be bought, and abused by all parties,
because he is the advocate of none; like the Dolphin^
which is always painted more crooked than a ram's
horn, although every naturalist knows that it is the
straightest fish that swims.

Truth is a standard according to which all things are
to be judged. When we appeal to it, it should be with
sincerity of purpose and honesty of feeling. Divesting
ourselves of all partiality, passion, paradox, and preju-
dice— of every kind of sophistry, subterfuge, chicanery,,
concealment and disguise, and laying the soul open to-
what is honest, right, and true, our only desire should
be to judge of things as they really are, and candidly
and truly to acknowledge and receive them as such..
For this is truth — the perception and representation of
things as they are.

Truth, divine in its nature and pure before heaven, is
the foundation of all human excellence, the keystone of
all sincere affection, and the seal of true discipleship
with the Good Shepherd. It is impossible to love one

TRUTH.

in whose truthfulness we cannot confide; or to slight
one, whose words, and purposes, and actions, are "with-
out dissimulation. " Truth, or silence, should be our
alternative; and we should not disturb the u soul's sweet
complacency,' ' by addicting ourselves to the too fre-
quent deceptions of "good breeding," or the "necessary
subterfuges of society." Good breeding needs not to
be sustained or appreciated through falsehood or affecta-
tion, and a social system which involves the practice of
subterfuge is wrong in its basis and corroding in its
tendency. Into God's holy place — our hoped-for future
home, and after the ineffable beauty of which every
earthly household, and circle, and human heart should
be modeled — nothing can enter which " loveth or
maketh a lie."

No bad man ever wished that his breast was made
of glass, or that others could read his thoughts. But
the misery is, that the duplicities, the temptations, and
the infirmities that surround us have rendered the
truth, and nothing but the truth, as hazardous and con-
traband a commodity as a man can possibly deal in.
Woe to falsehood ! it affords no relief to the breast like
truth; it gives us no comfort, pains him who forges h%
and like an arrow directed by a god, flies back and
wounds the archer. If a man be sincerely wedded to
truth, he must make up his mind to find her a portion-
less virgin, and he must take her for herself alone.
The contract, too, must be to love, cherish, and obey
her, not only until death, but beyond it : for this is an
union that must survive not only death, but time, the
conqueror of death. There is nothing which all man-

860

TRUTH.

kind venerate and admire so much as simple truth,
exempt from artifice, duplicity, and design. It exhibits
at once a strength of character and integrity of purpose
in which all are willing to confide.

Painters and sculptors have given us many ideal
representations of moral and intellectual qualities and
conceptions, and have presented us with the tangible
forms of beauty and grace, heroism and courage, and
many others. But which one of them will or can give
us a correct and faithful delineation and embodiment
of truth? — that we may place it upon our altars and
in our halls, in public and in private places, that it may
be honored and worshiped in every home and in every
heart !

We see in an instant the immense importance of
acquiring and inculcating habits of the strictest truth.
Whatever so essentially tends to the concord and
felicity of society, it must be of momentous consequence
to cherish and promulgate. No idea can be formed of
the important effect such habits would produce. The
most perfect confidence would not be the least of its
benefits, and the most perfect inward tranquillity. For
no species of deception can be practiced without causing
vexation and trouble to the practicer, and many a
cheek has blushed, and many a heart palpitated at the
apprehended or realized detection of mistakes and
exaggeration in common conversation. Exaggeration
is but another name for falsehood; to exaggerate is to
pass the bounds of truth; and how can those bounds be
passed, without entering upon the precincts of false-
hood. There can be but a true or a false representa-

TRUTH.

361

tion. There can be no medium; what is not true must
be false.

Of the public estimation in which truth is held, we
have numerous examples. Every one can enter into
the animating, the delightful emotion with which
Petrarch must have received the gratifying tribute of
public applause, when, on his appearing as witness in a
cause, and approaching the tribunal to take the accus-
tomed oaths, he was informed that such was the con-
fidence of the court in his veracity he would not be
required to take any oath, his word was sufficient.

Was not the praise bestowed on Petrarch a tacit
avowal that veracity such as his was very rarely
known ? Nothing can be more easy than to speak
truth; the unwise, the poor, the ignoble, the youthful,
can all equally practice it. Nothing can be more diffi-
cult than to speak falsely; the wise, the rich, the great,
the aged, have all failed in their attempts. It would
be an easy road to distinction to be pre-eminent in an
adherence to truth. We could enumerate many
besides Petrarch who have acquired respect by it
among their fellow-citizens, and celebrity in the page
of history. Can there be offered a more obtainable, a
more gratifying, a more noble object of emulation to
the youthful heart?

36?

JUDGMENT.

It is the office of judgment to compare the ideas
received through the senses with one another, and
thereby to gain right conceptions of things and events.
Hence it by degrees forms for itself a standard of
duty and propriety, accumulates rules and maxims
for conduct, and materials for reflection and meditation.

The judgment not only receives, investigates, and
arranges the ideas presented to it, but It also regulates
and directs the other faculties, where their exertions
may be most beneficial .and compensating. It also
restrains them from undue excursiveness, and prevents
their wandering into unprofitable and vicious efforts.

The most necessary talent in a man of conversation,
which is what we ordinarily intend by a gentleman, is
a good judgment. He that has this in perfection is
master of his companion, without letting him see it;
.and has the same advantage over men of any other
qualifications whatsoever, as one that can see would
have over a blind man of ten times his strength.

Judgment, too, is abused in its use, especially when
used to judge others. Knaves try to help themselves,
by pretending to help others. Great ingenuity, indus-
try, and perseverance are manifested in the modes of
attack. False sympathy, flattery, a tender concern for
your interest, bare-faced impudence and hypocrisy,,
make their attacks in front — whilst slander, falsehood,
dark innuendoes, and damning praise, assail the rear.
Pliny says, that Julius Caesar blamed so ingeniously,

JUDGMENT.

363

that his censures were mistaken for praise. Many, at
the present day, praise only to reproach. As has been
observed by an eminent writer, " They use envenomed
praise, which, by a side blow, exposes, in the person
they commend, such faults as they dare not, in any
other way, lay open." Deeply is the poison of calumny
infused in this way — the venom of a coward, and the
cunning of a knave combined.

He that sees ever so accurately, ever so finely into
the motives of other people's acting, may possibly be
entirety ignorant as to his own: it is by the mental as
the corporal eye, the object may be placed too near the
sight to be seen truly, as well as so far off; nay, too
near to be seen at all.

A right judgment
Draws profit from all things we see.

— Shakespeare.

The great misfortune, arising from a disposition to
judge others, and meddle with their affairs, consists in
its being void of genuine philanthropy. Rare instances
may occur when a person intrudes himself upon another
for good — but such intrusions are, "like angels' visits,
few and far between." It is of the contrary, and by
far more numerous class, that we speak — -men and
women, who look at others through a smoked glass —
that they may avoid the brightness of the good qual-
ities, and discover more clearly the bad — who first
perform the office of the green fly, that other flies may
prey upon the putridity they produce — scavengers of
reputation, who gather the faults, blemishes, and infirm-

364

JUDGMENT.

ities of their neighbors into a Pandora box — and there
pamper them, like a turtle for a holiday dinner — until
they are inflated to an enormous size; they are then
thrown into the market, and astonish every beholder.

Devils blush, and angels weep over such a disposition
as this. It is a canker worm in the body politic — the
destroyer of reputation; the bane of peace in society;
the murderer of innocence; a foul blot upon human
nature; a curse in community, and a disgrace to our
species.

Its baleful influence is felt, its demoniac effects are
^experienced, in all the walks of life. In the political
arena — within the pale of the church, and in the
•domestic circle — its miasma is infused. The able
statesman, the profound jurist, the eloquent advocate,
the pulpit orator, the investigating philosopher, the
skillful physician, the judicious merchant, the indus-
trious mechanic, the honest farmer, the day laborer,
the humblest peasant, the child in the nursery — have
all experienced the scorpion lashes of this imp of Satan.
Nay, more — female character, basking in the sunshine
of innocence, has often been withered, blighted, ruined,
by its chilling breath.

Let each reader examine and see if this propensity,
so deeply rooted in human nature, is exercising an
influence over his or her mind. If so, banish it from
your bosom, as you would a deadly viper. Let its
enormity be held up to children, by parents and teach-
ers, that they may learn to dread, despise, and avoid it.
Teach them charity, forbearance, forgiveness, and all
the virtues that adorn our race.

PATIENCE

365

Dear reader, does this propensity exist in your heart?
If so, banish it, for it will do you much harm, and in
time ruin your soul.

Becoming Graces
Are Justice, Verity, Temperance, Stableness,
Bounty, Perseverance, Mercy, Lowliness,
Devotion, Patience, Courage, Fortitude.

No man, in any condition of life, can pass his days
with tolerable comfort without patience. It is of uni
versal use. Without it, prosperity will be continually
disturbed, and adversity will be clouded with double
darkness. He who is without patience will be uneasy
and troublesome to all with whom he is connected, and
will be more troublesome to himself than to any other.
The loud complaint, the querulous temper and fretful
spirit, disgrace every character: we weaken thereby
the sympathy of others, and estrange them from offices
of kindness and comfort. But to maintain a steady
and unbroken mind, amidst all the shocks of adversity y
forms the highest honor of man. Afflictions supported
by patience and surmounted by fortitude, give the last
finishing stroke to the heroic and the virtuous char-
acter. Thus the vale of tears becomes the theatre of
human glory; that dark cloud presents the scene of all
the beauties in the bow of virtue. Moral grandeur,,

366

PATIENCE.

like the sun, is brighter in the day of the storm,
and never is so truly sublime as when straggling
through the darkness of an eclipse.

Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of
peace, the cherisher of love, the teacher of humility.
Patience governs the flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweet-
ens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues
pride ; she bridles the tongue, restrains the hand,
tramples upon temptations, endures persecutions, con-
summates martyrdom.

Patience produces unity in the church, loyalty in the
state, harmony in families and societies; she comforts
the poor and moderates the rich; she makes us humble
in prosperity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by cal-
umny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive those
who have injured us, and to be the first in asking the
forgiveness of those whom we have injured; she delights
the faithful and invites the unbelieving; she adorns the
woman and approves the man ; she is beautiful in either
sex and every age.

Behold her appearance and her attire! Her coun-
tenance is calm and serene as the face of heaven
unspotted by the shadow of a cloud, and no wrinkle of
grief or anger is seen in her forehead. Her eyes are as
the eyes of doves for meekness, and on her eyebrows
sit cheerfulness and joy. Her mouth is lovely in silence;
her complexion and color that of innocence and security,
while, like the virgin, the daughter of Zion; she shakes
her head at the adversary, despising and laughing him
to scorn. She is clothed in the robes of the martyrs,
and in her hand she holds a sceptre in the form of a

PATIENCE. 367

cross. She rides not in the whirlwind and stormy
tempest of passion, but her throne is the humble
and contrite heart, and her kingdom is the kingdom of
peace.

Patience has been defined as the "courage of virtue,"
the principle that enables us to lessen pain of mind or
body; an emotion that does not so much add to the
number of our joys, as it tends to diminish the number
of our sufferings. If life is made to abound with pains
and troubles, by the errors and the crimes of man, it is
no small advantage to have a faculty that enables us to
-soften these pains and to ameliorate these troubles.
How powerful, and how extensive the influence of
patience in performing this acceptable service, it is
impossible to judge but from experience ; those who
have known most bodily pain can best testify its power.
Impatience, in fact, b}7 inducing restlessness and irrita-
tion, not only doubles every pang, and prolongs every
suffering, but actually often creates the trials to be
endured. In pains of the body this is the case, but
more potently is it so in all mental affliction. The
hurry of spirits, the ineffectual efforts for premature
relief, the agitation of undue expectation, all combine
to create a real suffering, in addition to what is inflicted
by the cause of our impatience. How numberless are
the petty disasters effected, the trivial vexations pro-
tracted by this harrassing emotion; the loss of money,
time, friends, reputation, by mistaken earnestness in
pursuing violent schemes, in not pausing to reflect
before decision, in urging disagreeable or unjust claims,
and in rushing into ill-concerted plans?

868 PATIENCE.

The most beneficent operations of nature are the
result of patience. The waters slowly deposit their
rich alluvium; the fruits are months in their growth
and perfecting.

To be wise we must diligently apply ourselves, and
confront the same continuous application which our
forefathers did ; for labor is still, and ever will be, the
inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
We must be satisfied to work energetically with a pur-
pose, and wait the results with patience. Buffon has
even said of patience, that it is genius — the power of
great men, in his opinion, consisting mainly in their
power of continuous working and waiting. All pro-
gress, of the best kind, is slow; but to him who works
faithfully and in a right spirit, be sure that the reward
will be vouchsafed in its own good time. 1 '♦Courage
and industry," says Granville Sharpe, "must have sunk
in despair, and the world must have remained unim-
proved and unornamented, if men had merely compared
the effect of a single stroke of the chisel with the
pyramid to be raised, or of a single impression of the
spade with vhe mountains to be leveled.'" We must
continuously apply ourselves to right pursuits, and we
cannot fail to advance steadily, though it may be
unconsciously.

Hugh Miller modestly says, in his autobiography:
" The only merit to which I lay claim is that of patient
research — a merit in which whoever wills may rival or
surpass me; and this humble faculty of patience, when
rightly developed, may lead to more extraordinary
developments of idea than even genius itself."

PATIENCE.

369

Patience is a good nag, says the proverb. Wisely
and slow; they stumble that run fast. Always have a
good stock of patience laid by, and be sure you put it
where you can easily find it. Cherish patience as your
favorite virtue. Always keep it about you. You will
find use for it oftener than for all the rest. Moderation
is the silken string running through the pearl-chain of
all virtue. He who is impatient to become his own
master is most likely to become merely his own slave.
You can do anything if you will only have patience;
water may be carried in a sieve, if you can only wait
till it freezes. Those who at the commencement of
their career meet with less applause than they deserve,
not unfrequently gain more than they deserve at the
end of it; though having grounds at first to fear that
they were born to be starved, they often live long
enough to die of a surfeit.

He hath made a good progress in business that hath
thought well of it beforehand. Some do first and think
afterwards. Precipitation ruins the best laid designs;
whereas patience ripens the most difficult, and renders
the execution of them easy. That is done soon enough
which is done well. Soon ripe, soon rotten. He that
would enjoy the fruit, must not gather the flower. He
calls to patience, who is patience itself, and he that
gives the precept enforces it by his own example.
Patience affords us a shield to defend ourselves, and
innocence denies us a sword to defend others. Knowl-
edge is power, but it is one of the slowest because one
of the most durable of agencies. Continued exertion,
24

370

CONTENTMENT.

and not hasty efforts, that lead to success. What can-
not be cured must be endured. How poor are they
that have not patience!

" Poor and content is rich, and rich enough ;
But riches endless is as poor as winter
To him that always fears he shall be poor."

Every man either is rich, or may be so; though not
all in one and the same wealth. Some have abundance,
and rejoice *n it; some a competency, and are content;
some having nothing, have a mind desiring nothing.
He that hath most, wants something; he that hath
least, is in something supplied ; wherein the mind
which maketh rich, may well possess him with the
thought of store. Who whistles out more content
than the low-fortuned plowman, or sings more merrily
than the abject cobbler that sits under the stall? Con-
tent dwells with those that are out of the eye of the
world, whom she hath never trained with her gauds,
her toils, her lures. Wealth is like learning, wherein
our greater knowledge is only a larger sight of our
wants. Desires fulfilled, teach us to desire more; so
we that at first were pleased, by removing from that,
are now grown insatiable.

We knew a man that had health and riches, and

CONTENTMENT.

371

several houses, all beautiful and ready furnished, and
would often trouble himself and family to be removing
from one house to another ; and being asked by a
friend why he removed so often from one house to
another, replied: "It was to find content in some of
them.'" But his friend, knowing his temper, told him,
" If he would find content in any of his houses, he must
leave himself behind him; for content will never dwell
but in a meek and quiet soul." The inscription upon
the tombstone of the man who had endeavored to
mend a tolerable constitution by taking physic, " / was
well; I wished to be better; here I am" may generally
be applied with great justness to the distress of disap-
pointed avarice and ambition.

We sometimes go musing along the street to see how
few people there are whose faces look as though any joy
had come down and sung in their souls. We can see
lines of thought, and of care, and of fear — money lines,
shrewd, grasping lines — but how few happy lines!
The rarest feeling that ever lights the human face is
the contentment of a loving soul. Sit for an hour on
the steps of the Exchange in Wall Street, and you will
behold a drama which is better than a thousand the-
atres, for all the actors are real. There are a hundred
successful men where there is one contented man. We
can find a score of handsome faces where we can find
one happy face. An eccentric wealthy gentleman
stuck up a board in a field upon his estate, upon which
was painted the following: "I will give this field to
any man contented." He soon had an applicant.
"Well, sir; are you a contented man?" "Yes, sir;

372

CONTENTMENT.

very." "Then what do you want of my field?" The
applicant did not stop to reply.

It is one property which, they say, is required of
those that seek the philosopher's stone, that they must
not do it with any covetous desire to be rich, for other-
wise they shall never find it. But most true it is, that
whosoever would have this jewel of contentment, (which
turns all into gold, yea, want into wealth,) must come
with minds divested of all ambitious and covetous
thoughts, else are they never likely to obtain it. The
foundation of content must spring up in a man's own
mind; and he who has so little knowledge of human
nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but
his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless
efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to
remove. No man can tell whether he is rich or poor
by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a
man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he ts1
not according to what he has.

It conduces much to our content if we pass by those
things which happen to trouble, and consider what is
pleasing and prosperous, that by the representations of
the better the worse may be blotted out. If I be over-
thrown in my suit at law, yet my house is left me still,
and my land, or I have a virtuous wife, or hopeful
children, or kind friends, or hopes. If I have lost one
child, it may be I have two or three still left me.
Enjoy the present, whatever it may be, and be not
solicitous for the future; for if you take your foot from
the present standing, and thrust it forward to to-
morrow's event, you are in a restless condition; it is

CONTENTMENT.

373

like refusing to quench your present thirst by fearing
you will want to drink the next day. If to-morrow
you should want, your sorrow would come time
enough, though you do not hasten it; let your trouble
tarry till its own day comes. Enjoy the blessings of
this day, if God sends them, and the evils of it bear
patiently and sweetly, for this day is ours. We are
dead to yesterday, and not yet born to to-morrow. A
contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can
enjoy in this world; and if in the present life his happi-
ness arises from the subduing of his desires, it will
arise in the next from the gratification of them.

Contentment is felicity. Few are the real wants of
man. Like a majority of his troubles, they are more
imaginary than real. Some well persons want to be
better, take medicine, and become sick in good earnest;
perhaps die under some patented nostrum. Some per-
sons have wealth — they want more — enter into some
new business they do not understand, or some wild
speculation, and become poor indeed. Many who are
.surrounded by all the substantial comforts of life, be-
come discontented because some wealthier neighbor
sports a carriage, and his lady a Brussels carpet and
mahogany chairs, entertains parties, and makes more
show in the world than they. Like the monkey, they
attempt to imitate all they see that is deemed fashion-
able; make a dash at greater contentment; dash out
their comfortable store of wealth; and sometimes,
'determined on quiet at least, close the farce with a
tragedy, and dash their brains out with a blue pill.
Discontented persons live in open rebellion against

374

CONTENTMENT. H

their great Benefactor, and virtually claim wisdom r
more than infinite. They covet, they wish, and wishes
are as prolific as rabbits. One imaginary want, like a
stool pigeon, brings flocks of others, and the mind
becomes so overwhelmed, that it loses sight of all
the real comforts in possession.

Contentment consisteth not in adding more fuel, but
in taking away some fire; not in multiplying wealthy
but in subtracting men's desires. Worldly riches, like
nuts, tear men's clothing in getting them, spoil men's,
teeth in cracking them, but fill no belly in eating them.
When Alexander saw Diogenes sitting in the warm
sun, and asked what he should do for him? he desired
no more than that Alexander would stand out of his
sunshine, and not take from him what he could not
give. A quiet and contented mind is the supreme
good; it is the utmost felicity a man is capable of in
this world: and the maintaining of such an uninter-
rupted tranquility of spirit is the very crown and
glory of wisdom.

Nature teaches us to live, but wisdom teaches us to
live contented. Contentment is opposed to fortune
and opinion — it is the wealth of nature, for it gives
everything we either want or need The discontents
of the poor are much easier allayed than those of the
rich. Solon being asked by Croesus, who in the world
was happier than himself, answered, Tellus; who,
though he was poor, was a good man, and content
with what he had, and died in a good old age. No
line holds the anchor of contentment so fast as a good
conscience. This cable is so strong, and compact, that

CONTENTMENT.

375

when force is offered to it, the straining rather strength-
ens, by uniting the parts more closely.

Those who are contented with a little deserve much;
and those who deserve much are far the more likely
persons to be contented with a little. Contentment is
oftener made of cheap materials than of dear ones.
What a glorious world this would be, if all its inhab-
itants could say with Shakespeare's shepherd: "Sir, I
am a true laborer, I earn that I wear; owe no man
hate; envy no man's happiness; glad of other men's
good, contented with my farm." Half the discontent
in the world arises from men regarding themselves as
centers, instead of the infinitesimal segments, of circles.
Be contented with enough; you may butter your bread
until you are unable to eat it. Enough is as good as
a feast. When you feel dissatisfied with your circum-
stances, look at those beneath you. There are minds,
said John Quincy Adams, which can be pleased by
honors and preferments, and I can see nothing in them
save envy and enmity. It is only necessary to possess
them to know how little they contribute to happiness.
I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage, with
my books, my family, and a few old friends, dining
upon simple bacon and hominy and letting the world
roll on as it likes, than to occupy the most high places
which human power can give.

376

CHEERFULNESS.

God bless the cheerful person — man, woman or
child, old or young, illiterate or educated, handsome
or homely. Over and above every other social trait
stands cheerfulness. What the sun is to nature, what
the stars are to night, what God is to the stricken
heart which knows how to lean upon Him, are cheer-
ful persons in the house and by the wayside. Man
recognizes the magic of a cheerful influence in woman
more quickly and more willingly than the potency of
dazzling genius, of commanding worth, or even of
enslaving beauty.

If we are cheerful and contented, all nature smiles
with us ; the air seems more balmy, the sky more clear,
the ground has a brighter green, the trees have a richer
foliage, the flowers a more fragrant smell, the birds
sing more sweetly, and the sun, moon and stars all
appear more beautiful.

Cheerfulness ! How sweet in infancy, how lovely in
youth, how saintly in age ! There are a few noble
natures whose very presence carries sunshine with
them wherever they go; a sunshine which means pity
for the poor, sympathy for the suffering, help for the
unfortunate, and benignity toward all. How such a
face enlivens every other face it meets, and carries
into ever}^ company vivacity and joy and gladness!
But the scowl and frown, begotten in a selfish heart,
and manifesting itself in daily, almost hourly fretful-
ness, complaining, fault-finding, angry criticisms, spite-

CHEERFULNESS.

377

ful comments on the motives and actions of others,
how they thin the cheek, shrivel the face, sour and
sadden the countenance! No joy in the heart, no
nobility in the soul, no generosity in the nature; the
whole character as cold as an iceberg, as hard as
Alpine rock, as arid as the wastes of Sahara! Reader,
which of these countenances are you cultivating? If
you find yourself losing all your confidence in humar
nature, you are nearing an old age of vinegar, of
wormwood and of gall; and not a mourner will follow
your solitary bier, not one tear-drop shall ever fall on
3^our forgotten grave.

Look at the bright side. Keep the sunshine of a
living faith in the heart. Do not let the shadow of
discouragement and despondency fall on your path.
However weary you may be, the promises of God
will never cease to shine, like the stars at night, to
cheer and strengthen. Learn to wait as well as labor.
The best harvests are the longest in ripening. It is
not pleasant to work in the earth plucking the ugly
tares and weeds, but it is as necessary as sowing the
seed. The harder the task, the more need of singing.
A hopeful spirit will discern the silver lining of the
darkest cloud, for back of all planning and doing, with
its attendant discouragements and hindrances, shines
the light of Divine promise and help. Ye are God's
husbandmen. It is for you to be faithful. He gives
the increase. ,

Be cheerful, for it is the only happy life. The times
may be hard, but it will make them no easier to wear
2, gloomy and sad countenance. It is the sunshine and

378

CHEERFULNESS.

not the cloud that makes the flower. There is always-
that before or around us which should fill the heart
with warmth. The sky is blue ten times where it is
black once. You have troubles, it may be. So have
others. None are free from them. Perhaps it is as
well that none should be. They give sinew and tone
to life — fortitude and courage to man. That would
be a dull sea, and the sailor would never get skill,
where there was nothing to disturb the surface of the
ocean. It is the duty of every one to extract all the
happiness and enjoyment he can without and within
him, and, above all, he should look on the bright side
of things. What though things do look a little dark?
The lane will turn, and the night will end in broad
day. In the long run, the great balance rights itself.
What is ill becomes well; what is wrong becomes
right. Men are not made to hang down either heads
or lips; and those who do, only show that they are
departing from the paths of true common sense and
right. There is more virtue in one sunbeam than a
whole hemisphere of cloud and gloom. Therefore*
we repeat, look on the bright side of things. Culti
vate what is warm and genial — not the cold and repul*
sive, the dark and morose. Don't neglect your duty:
live down prejudice.

We always know the cheerful man by his hearty
"good morning." As well might fog, and cloud, and
vapor hope to cling to the sun-illumined landscape, as
the blues and moroseness to remain in any countenance
when the cheerful one comes with a hearty "good
morning." Dear reader, don't forget to say it. Say

CHEERFULNESS.

379

it to your parents, your brothers and sisters, your
schoolmates, your teachers — and say it cheerfully and
with a smile; it will do you good, and do your friends
good. There's a kind of inspiration in every "good
morning,1 ' heartily and smilingly spoken, that helps to
make hope fresher and work lighter. It seems really
to make the morning good, and a prophecy of a good
day to come after it. And if this be true of the "good
morning," it is also of all kind, cheerful greetings; they
cheer the discouraged, rest the tired one, and somehow
make the wheels of time run more smoothly. Be lib-
eral then, and let no morning pass, however dark and
gloomy it may be, that you do not help at least to
brighten it by your smiles and cheerful words.

The cheerful are the busy; when trouble knocks at
your door or rings the bell, he will generally retire if
you send him word "engaged." And a busy life can-
not well be otherwise than cheerful. Frogs do not
croak in running water. And active minds are seldom
troubled with gloomy forebodings. They come up
only from the stagnant depths of a spirit unstirred by
generous impulses or the blessed necessities of honest
toil.

What shall we say by way of commending that sweet
cheerfulness by which a good and sensible woman
diffuses the oil of gladness in the proper sphere of
home. The best specimens of heroism in the world
were never gazetted. They play their role in common
life, and their reward is not in the admiration of spec-
tators, but in the deep joy of their own conscious
thoughts. It is easy for a housewife to make arrange-

380

CHEEUFU LNE8S,

ments for an occasional feast; but let me tell you what
is greater and better: amid the weariness and cares of
life; the troubles, real and imaginary, of a family; the
many thoughts and toils which are requisite to make
the family home of thrift, order and comfort ; the
varieties of temper and cross-lines of taste and inclina-
tion which are to be found in a large household — to
maintain a heart full of good nature and a face always
bright with cheerfulness, this is a perpetual festivity.
We do not mean a mere superficial simper, which has
no more character in it than the flow of a brook, but
that exhaustless patience, and self-control, and kindness,
and tact which spring from good sense and brave pur-
poses. Neither is it the mere reflection of prosperity,
for cheerfulness, then, is no virtue. Its best exhibition
is in the dark back-ground of real adversity. Affairs
assume a gloomy aspect, poverty is hovering about the
door, sickness has already entered, days of hardship
and nights of watching go slowly by, and now you see
the triumph of which we speak. When the strong
man has bowed himself, and his brow is knit and
creased, you will see how the whole life of the house-
hold seems to hang on the frailer form, which, with
solicitudes of her own, passing, it may be, under "the
sacred primal sorrow of her sex," has an eye and an
ear for every one but herself, suggestive of expedients,
hopeful in extremities, helpful in kind words and affec-
tionate smiles, morning, noon and night, the medicine,
the light, the heart of a whole household. God bless
that bright, sunny face! says many a reader, as he

CHEERFULNESS.

381

recalls that one of mother, wife, sister, daughter, which
has been to him all that my words have described.

The industrious bee stops not to complain that there
are so many poisonous flowers and thorny branches in
his road, but buzzes on, selecting the honey where he
can find it, and passing quietly by the places where it
is not. There is enough in this world to complain
about and find fault with, if men have the disposition.
We often travel on a hard and uneven road, but with a
cheerful spirit and a heart to praise God for his mercies,
we may walk therein with great comfort and come to
the end of our journey in peace.

Let us try to be like the sunshiny member of the
family, who has the inestimable art to make all duty
seem pleasant, all self-denial and exertion easy and
desirable, even disappointment not so blank and crush-
ing ; who is like a bracing, crisp, frosty atmosphere
throughout the home, without a suspicion of the
element that chills and pinches. You have known
people within whose influence you felt cheerful, ami-
able, and hopeful, equal to anything ! Oh ! for that
blessed power, and for God's grace to exercise it
rightly! I do not know a more enviable gift than the
energy to sway others to good; to diffuse around us an
atmosphere of cheerfulness, piety, truthfulness, gene-
rosity, magnanimity. It is not a matter of great talent ;
not entirely a matter of great energy; but rather of
earnestness and honesty, and of that quiet, constant
energy which is like soft rain gently penetrating the
soil. It is rather a grace than a gift; and we all know
where all grace is to be had freely for the asking.

382

HAPPINESS.

Writers of every age have endeavored to show
that pleasure is in us and not in the object offered for
our amusement. If the soul be happily disposed, every-
thing becomes capable of affording entertainment, and
distress will almost want a name.

The fountain of content must spring up in the mind,
and he who seeks happiness by changing anything but
his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts
and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove.

Man is, in all respects, constituted to be happy.
Hence it is that he sees goodness around him in propor-
tion to the goodness that is within him; and it is also
for this reason that when he calls the evil that is within
him outside of him it also appears so. If man, there-
fore, chooses that which does not seem to him good, he
can, in a measure, enjoy it. One of the most evident
differences between the enjoyment of what is good and
true and that which is false and evil, is that the first
leaves something to be re-enjoyed in memory and after
life, while the latter leaves regret, disappointment and
suffering.

Great part of the infelicity of men arises not so much
from their situations or circumstances as from their
pride, vanity and ambitious expectations. In order to
be happy, these dispositions must be subdued; we must
always keep before our eyes such views of the world as
shall prevent . our expecting more from it than it is
designed to afford. We destroy our joys by devouring

HAPPINESS.

38S

them beforehand with too eager expectation. We ruin
the happiness of life when we attempt to raise it too
high. Menedemus being told one day that ft was a
great felicity to have whatever we desire, " Yes, 1 ' said
he, ubut it is a much greater to desire nothing but what
*we have."

The idea has been transmitted from generation to
generation that happiness is one large and beautiful
precious stone — a single gem, so rare that all search
after it is all vain effort, for it is fruitless and hopeless.
It is not so. Happiness is a mosaic, composed of many
smaller stones. Each taken apart and viewed singly
may be of little value, but when all are grouped
together and judiciously combined and set, they form a
pleasing and graceful whole, a costly jewel.

Trample not under foot then the little pleasures
which a gracious Providence scatters in the daily path
while in eager search after some great and exciting joy.
We are so apt to overlook little things and our own
mind, and look for happiness in large external matter;
but we find it not.

If you go to the creature to make you happy, the
earth will tell you that happiness grows not in the fur-
rows of the fields; the sea that it is not in the treasures
of the deep; cattle will say, "It is not on our backs
crowns will say, "It is too precious a gem to be found
in us." We can adorn the head, but we cannot satisfy
the heart. Happiness is in us, not in things.

If happiness consisted in things only, there would be
no end to the numberless kinds of it. It was in this
point of view that the erudite Roman writer, Varro,

384

enumerated seven hundred sorts of happiness. So?
also, the learned Turkish doctor, Ebn Abbas, main-
tained that the number of grievous sins is about seven
hundred, thus balancing the accounts between good
and ill.

We talk of wealth, fame and power as undeniable
sources of enjoyment, and limited fortune, obscurity
and insignificance as incompatible with felicity. It is
thus that there is a remarkable distinction between
acquisitions and conditions, theoretically considered,
and practically proved. However brilliant in specula-
tion, wealth, fame and power, are found in possession
impotent to confer felicity. However decried in pros-
pect, limited fortunes, obscurity, insignificance, are by
experience proved most friendly to human happiness.
Le Droz, who wrote a treaty upon happiness, describes
the conditions necessary for it, as consisting of the
greatest fortitude to resist and endure the ills and pains
of life, united with the keenest sensibility to enjoy its
pleasures and delights.

"Health, peace and competence," is a popular defini-
tion of happiness. Yet thousands, and tens of thousands,
possess these great blessings and are not happy, nay,
will not allow that they have the means to be happy.
Madame de Stael, in her "Delphine," defines happiness
to consist in the absence of misery. How many human
beings are without one single real evil, and yet com-
plain of their fate.

There is so little real happiness on earth because we
seek it not aright — we seek it where it is not, in out-
ward circumstance and external good, and neglect to

GRATITUDE.

385

seek it, where alone it dwells, in the close chambers of
the bosom. We would have a happiness in time,
independent of eternity; we would have it independent
of the Being whose it is to give; and so we go forth,
each one as best we may, to seek out the rich posses-
sion for ourselves. But disappointment attends every
step in the pursuit of happiness, until we seek it where
alone it can be found. The original curse is still resting
upon us. The cherubim, with their flaming swords,
still guard the gates of Paradise, and no man enters
therein.

" But foolish mortals still pursue
False happiness in place of true ;
A happiness we toil to find,
Which still pursues us like the wind."

Although the word gratitude, like the word trin-
ity, is not to be found in the Bible, yet as the sacred
Scriptures contain many sentiments on each of these
subjects, and these words are the most comprehensive
to convey the ideas, they are well adapted. To deliver
our thoughts in few words on gratitude, we apprehend
it includes five things: first, a deep and lively sense of
benefits received ; secondly, an ardent love to and
complacency in the benefactor; thirdly, an immediate
beginning to make all possible returns to the donor,
25

386

GRATITUDE.

either in repaying or else expressing our thankfulness;
fourthly, in a fixed purpose of heart to make better
returns, if ever in our power; and fifthly, a determined
resolution to retain gratitude for the benefit or favors
to the end of life.

Gratitude is justly said to be the mother of most
virtues, because that from this one fountain so many
rivulets arise; as that of reverence unto parents and
masters, friendship, love to our country, and obedience
to God. The ungrateful are everywhere hated, being
under a suspicion of every vice; but, on the contrary,
grateful persons are in the estimation of all men, hav-
ing by their gratitude put in a kind of security that
they are not without a measure of every other virtue.

Gratitude is a painful pleasure, felt and expressed by
none but noble souls. Such are pained, because mis*
fortune places them under the stern necessity of receiv-
ing favors from the benevolent, who are, as the world
would say, under no obligations to bestow them — free-
will offerings, made by generous hearts, to smooth the
rough path, and wipe away the tears of a fellow being.
They derive a pleasure from the enjoyment of the
benefits bestowed, which is rendered more exquisite by
the reflection that there are those in the world who
can feel and appreciate the woes of others, and lend a
willing hand to help them out of the ditch; those who
are not wrapped up in the cocoon of selfish avarice,
who live only for themselves, and die for the devil.
This pleasure is farther refined by a knowledge of the
happiness enjoyed by the person whose benevolence
dictated the relief in the contemplation of a duty per-

GRATITUDE.

387

formed, imposed by angelic philanthropy, guided by
motives pure as heaven. The worthy recipient feels
deeply the obligations under which he is placed; no
time can obliterate them from his memory, no statute
of limitation bars the payment; the moment, means
and opportunity are within his power, the debt is joy-
fully liquidated, and this very act gives a fresh vigor
to his long-cherished gratitude.

A very poor and aged man, busied in planting and
grafting an apple tree, was rudely interrupted by this
interrogation: "Why do you plant trees, who cannot
hope to eat the fruit of them?" He raised himself up^
and leaning upon his spade, replied: "Some one planted
trees for me before I was born, and I have eaten the
fruit; I now plant for others, that the memorial of my
gratitude may exist when I am dead and gone." It is
a species of agreeable servitude to be under an obliga-
tion to those we esteem. Ingratitude is a crime so
shameful that the man has not yet been found who
would acknowledge himself guilty of it.

Nothing tenders the heart, and opens the gushing
fountain of love, more than the exercise of gratitude.
Like the showers of spring, that cause flowers to rise
from seeds that have long lain dormant, tears of grati-
tude awaken pleasurable sensations, unknown to those
who have never been forced from the sunshine of pros-
perity into the cold shade of adversity, where no
warmth is felt but that of benevolence ; no light
enjoyed but that of charity ; unless it shall be the
warmth and light communicated from Heaven to the
sincerely pious, who alone are prepared to meet, with

388

HOPE.

calm submission, the keen and chilling winds of mis-
fortune, and who, above all others, exercise the virtue
of gratitude, in the full perfection of its native beauty.

The poet Hesiod tells us that the miseries of all
mankind were included in a great box, and that
Pandora took off the lid of it, by which means all
of them came abroad, and only hope remained at
the bottom. Hope, then, is the principal antidote
which keeps our heart from bursting under the pres-
sure of evils, and is that flattering mirror that gives
us a prospect of some greater good. Some call hope
the manna from heaven, that comforts us in all extrem-
ities; others, the pleasant flatterer that caresses the
unhappy with expectations of happiness in the bosom
of futurity. When all other things fail us, hope stands
by us to the last. This, as it were, gives freedom to
the captive when chained to the oar, health to the sick,
victory to the defeated, and wealth to the beggar.

True hope , is based on energy of character. A
strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to
hope, because it knows the mutability of human affairs,
and how slight a circumstance may change the whole
course of events. Such a spirit, too, rests upon itself;
it is not confined to partial views, or to one particular
object. And if, at last, all should be lost, it has saved

HOPE.

Itself — its own integrity and worth. Hope awakens
courage, while despondency is the last of all evils; it
is the abandonment of good — the giving up of the
battle of life with dead nothingness. He who can im-
plant courage in the human soul is the best physician.

Earthly hope, like fear, is confined to this dim spot,
on which we live, move, and have our being. It is
excluded from heaven and hell. It is a dashing blade,
with a great estate in expectancy, which, when put in
its possession, produces instant death. It draws large
drafts on experience, payable in futuro, and is seldom
able to liquidate them. Hope is always buoyant, and,
like old Virginia, never tires. It answers well for
breakfast, but makes a bad supper. Like a balloonr
we know where it starts from, but can make no calcu-
lation when, where, and how, it will land us. Hope
is a great calculator, but a bad mathematician. Its
problems are seldom based on true data — their demon-
stration is oftener fictitious than otherwise. Without
the baseness of some modern land speculators, it builds
cities and towns on paper, that are as worthless as their
mountain peaks and impassable quagmires. It sus-
pends earth in the air, and plays with bubbles, like a
child, with his tube and soap suds. As with Milo, who
attempted to split an oak, and was caught in the split
and killed; the wedge often flies out, and the operator
is caught in a split stick. It is bold as Caesar, and ever
ready to attempt great feats, if it should be to storm
the castle of despair.

When all other emotions are controlled by events,
hope alone remains forever buoyant and undecayed,

390

HOPE.

under the most adverse circumstances, "unchanged,,
unchangeable." Causes that affect with depression
every other emotion, appear to give fresh elasticity
to hope. No oppression can crush its buoyancy; from
under every weight it rebounds ; amid the most depress-
ing circumstances, it preserves its cheering influence;
no disappointments can annihilate its power, no expe-
rience can deter us from listening to its sweet illusions:
it seems a counterpoise for misfortune, an equivalent for
every endurance. Who is there without hope? The
fettered prisoner in his dark cell, the diseased sufferer
on his bed of anguish, the friendless wanderer on the
unsheltered waste; each cherishes some latent spark
of this pure and ever-living light. Like the beam of
heaven, it glows with indestructible brilliance, to the
heart of man what light is to his eye, cheering, blessings
invigorating.

A true hope we can touch somehow through all the
lights and shadows of life. It is a prophecy fulfilled in
part; God's earnest money paid into our hand that He
will be ready with the whole when we are ready for it;
the sunlight on the hill top when the valley is dark as
death; the spirit touching us all through our pilgrimage^
and then when we know that the end is near, taking us
on its wings and soaring away into the blessed life
where we may expect either that the fruition will be
entirely equai to the hope, or that the old glamour will
come over us again and beckon us on forever as the
choicest blessing Heaven has to give. We know of
no condition in any life which is trying to be real and
true in which this power will not do for us very much

HOPE.

391

what we have seen it doing for the man who has to
wait on the seasons for his daily bread.

We can cherish a sure hope about our future and the
future of those that belong to us, a sunny, eager on-
looking toward the fulfillment of all of the promises
God has written on our nature. We may be all wrong
in our thoughts of the special form in which our bless-
ings will come ; we never can be wrong about the
blessing. It may be like the mirage shifting from
horizon to horizon as we plod wearily along, but the
soul is bound to find at last the resting-place and the
spring. There is many a father in the world to-day
trying hard to get his head above water who will sink,
but his boys will swim and reach the firm land, and
think of him with infinite tenderness, while he, perhaps,
is watching them from above, and their success may
be one of the elements of his joy in Heaven. The set-
ting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The
brightness of our life is gone, shadows of the evening
fall behind us, and the world seems but a dim reflection
itself — a broader shadow. We look forward into the
coming lonely night; the soul withdraws itself. Then
stars arise, and the night is holy.

Its morality is equally inspiring, rich, and beneficent.
It encourages all things good, great, noble. It whispers
liberty to the slave, freedom to the captive, health to
the sick, home to the wandering, friends to the forsaken,
peace to the troubled, supplies to the needy, bread to
the hungry, strength to the weak, rest to the weary,
life to the dying. It has sunshine in its eye, encourage-
ment on its tongue, and inspiration in its hand. Rich

392

HOPE.

and glorious is hope, and faithfully should it be culti-
vated. Let its inspiring influence be in the heart of
every youth. It will give strength and courage. Let
its cheerful words fall ever from his tongue, and his
bright smile play ever on its countenance. Entertain
well this nymph of goodness. Cultivate well this
ever-shining flower of the spirit. It is the evergreen
of life, that grows at the eastern gate of the souPs
garden.

Hopes and fears checker human life. He that wants
hope, is the poorest man living. Our hopes and fears
are the main springs of all our religious endeavors.
There is no one whose condition is so low but that he
may have hopes ; nor is any one so high as to be out of
the reach of fears. Hopes and disappointments are the
lot and entertainment of human life: the one serves to
keep us from presumption, the other from despair.
Hope is the last thing that dieth in man, and though it
be exceeding dutiful, yet it is of this good use to us,
that while we are traveling through this life, it conducts
us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's
end. When faith, temperance, the graces, and other
celestial powers, left the earth, says one of the ancients,
hope was the only goddess that staid behind. Hope's
enchantments never die. Eternal hope! Hope gilds
the future. Hope cheers and rouses the soul. Hope
and strive is the way to thrive. The man who carries
a lantern in a dark night can have friends all around
him, walking safely by the help of its rays, and not
be defrauded. So he who has the God-given light of
hope in his breast can help on many others in this

CHARITY.

393

world's darkness, not to his own loss, but to their
precious gain.

Hope is an anchor to the soul, both sure and stead-
fast, that will steady our frail bark, while sailing over
the ocean of life, and that will enable us to outride the
storms of time — a hope that reaches from earth to
heaven. This hope is based on faith in the immaculate
Redeemer, and keeps our earthly hopes from running
riot into forbidden paths. The cable of this hope can-
not be sundered until death cuts the gordian knot and
lets the prisoner go free. To live without it, is blind
infatuation — to die without it, eternal ruin.

Charity is one of those amiable qualities of the
human breast that imparts pleasure to its possessor,
and those who receive it. It is of a modest and
retiring nature. Charity, like the dew from heaven,
falls gently on the drooping flower in the stillness of
night. Its refreshing and reviving effects are felt,
seen, and admired. It flows from a good heart, and
looks beyond the skies for approval and reward. It
never opens, but seeks to heal the wounds inflicted by
misfortune — it never harrows up, but strives to calm
the troubled mind. Like their Lord and Master, the
truly benevolent man and woman go about doing good
for the sake of goodness. No parade, no trumpet to

894

CHARITY.

sound their charities, no press to chronicle their acts.
The gratitude of the donee is a rich recompense to the
donor — purity of motive heightens and refines the joys
of each. Angels smile on such benevolence. It is the
attribute of Deity, the moving cause of every blessing
we enjoy.

Fair Charity, be thou my guest,

And be thy constant couch, my breast.

— Cotton.

Charity is the golden chain that reaches from heaven
to earth. It is another name for disinterested, lofty,
unadulterated love. It is the substratum of philan-
thropy, the brightest star in the Christian's diadem.
It spurns the scrofula of jealousy, the canker of tor-
menting envy, the tortures of burning malice, the
typhoid of foaming revenge. It is an impartial mir-
ror, set in the frame of love, resting on equity and
justice. It is the foundation and cap stone of the
climax of all the Christian graces; without it, our
religion is like a body without a soul; our friendships,
shadows of a shadow; our alms, the offsprings of pridey
or, what is more detestable, the offerings of hypocrisy;
our humanity, a mere iceberg on the ocean of time —
we are unfit to discharge the duties of life, and derange
the design of our creation. Was this heaven-born,
soul-cheering principle the mainspring of human action^
the all-pervading motive-power that impelled mankind
in their onward course to eternity, the polar star to
guide them through this world of sin and wo — the
ills that flesh is heir to, would be softened in its melting

CHARITY.

395

sunbeams, a new and blissful era would dawn auspi-
ciously upon our race, and Satan would become a
bankrupt for want of business. Wars and rumors
of wars would cease; envy, jealousy, and revenge
would hide their diminished heads; falsehood, slander,
and persecution would be unknown; sectarian walls,
in matters of religion, would crumble in dust; the
household of faith would become, what it should be,,
one united, harmonious family in Christ; infidelity
vice, and immorality would recede, and happiness,,
before unknown, would become the crowning glory
of man. Pure and undefiled religion would then be
honored and glorified — primitive Christianity would,
stand forth, divested of the inventions of men, in all
the majesty of its native loveliness. Oh, could an
angel bear a balm of such charity into our hearts,
then would earth become a heaven and hell a fable.

When we take the history of one poor heart that
has sinned and suffered, and represent to ourself the
struggles and temptations it passed through — the brief
pulsation of joy, the tears of regret, the feebleness of
purpose, the scorn of the world that, has little charity;
the desolation of the soul's sanctuary, and threatening
voices within; health gone; happiness gone — we would
fain leave the erring soul of our fellow-man with Him
from whose hands it came. It is then that the words
of Prior show their truth and beauty:

" Soft peace it brings wherever it arrives,
It builds our quiet — 'latent hope revives,'
Lays the rough paths of nature 1 smooth and even/
And opens in each breast a little heaven."

£96

KINDNESS.

Is any man fallen into disgrace? Charity holds down
its head, is abashed and out of countenance, partaking
of his shame. Is any man disappointed of his hopes
or endeavors? Charity cries out, alas! as if it were
itself defeated. Is any man afflicted with pain or sick-
ness ? Charity looks sadly, it sigheth and groans, it faints
and languishes with him. Is any man pinched with
hard want? Charity, if it cannot succor, will condole.
Does ill news arrive ? Charity hears it with an unwilling
ear and a sad heart, although not particularly concerned
in it. The sight of a wreck at sea, of a field spread
with carcasses, of a country desolated, of houses burned
and cities ruined, and of the like calamities incident to
mankind, would touch the bowels of any man; but the
^very report of them would affect the heart of charity.

More hearts pine away in secret anguish, foi the
want of kindness from those who should be their com-
forters, than for any other calamity in life. A word
of kindness is a seed which, when dropped by chance,
springs up a flower. A kind word and pleasant voice
are gifts easy to give; be liberal with them; they are
worth more than money. "If a word or two will ren-
der a man happy," said a Frenchman, "he must be a
wretch indeed, who will not give it. It is like lighting
another man's candle with your own. which loses none

KINDNESS.

397

of its brilliancy by what the other gains." If all men
acted upon that principle the world would be much
happier than it is. Kindness is like a calm and peace-
ful stream that reflects every object in its just propor-
tion. The violent spirit, like troubled waters, renders
back the images of things distorted and broken, and
communicates to them that disordered motion which
arises from its own agitation. Kindness makes sun-
shine wherever it goes; it finds its way into hidden
chambers of the heart and brings forth golden treas-
ures ; harshness, on the contrary, seals them up forever.
Kindness makes the mother's lullaby sweeter than the
song of the lark, the care-laden brow of the father and
man of business less severe in their expression. Kind-
ness is the real law of life, the link that connects earth
with heaven, the true philosopher's stone, for all it
touches it turns to virgin gold; the true gold wherewith
we purchase contentment, peace and love. Write your
name by kindness, love and mercy on the hearts of the
people you come in contact with year by year, and you
will never be forgotten.

In the intercourse of social life it is by little acts
of watchful kindness recurring daily and hourly; and
opportunities of doing kindness, if sought for, are for-
ever starting up; it is by words, by tones, by gestures,
by looks, that affection is won and preserved.

How sweet are the affections of kindness. How
balmy the influence of that regard which dwells around
the fireside, where virtue lives for its own sake, and
fidelity regulates and restrains the thirst for admiration,
often a more potent foe to virtue than the fiercest lust.

398

KINDNESS.

Where distrust and doubt dim not the lustre of purity,
and where solicitude, except for the preservation of an
unshaken confidence, has no place, and the gleam of
suspicion or jealousy never disturb the harmony and
tranquility of the scene. Where paternal kindness and
devoted filial affection blossom in all the freshness
of eternal spring. It matters not if the world is cold,
if we can turn to our own dear circle for the enjoyment
of which the heart yearns. Lord Bacon beautifully
says: "If a man be gracious unto strangers it shows
he is a citizen of the world, and his heart is no island
cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins
them."

There is nothing like kindness in the world. It is
the very principle of love; an emanation of the heart
which softens and gladdens, and should be inculcated
and encouraged in all our intercourse with our fellow
beings. It is impossible to resist continued kindness.
We may, in a moment of petulance or passion, mani-
fest coldness to the exhibition of good will on the part
of a new acquaintance ; but let him persist, let him
continue to prove himself really benevolent of heart,
generously and kindly disposed, and we will find our
stubborn nature giving way, even unconsciously to
ourselves. If this be the result of kindness among
comparative strangers, how much more certain and
delightful will be the exercise of the feelings at home,
within the charmed circle of friends and relatives ?
Home enjoyments, home affections, home courtesies,
cannot be too carefully or steadily cultivated. They
form the sunshine of the heart. They bless and sane-

KINDNESS.

399

tify our private circle. They become a source of calm
delight to the man of business after a day of toil, they
teach the merchant, the trader, the working man, that
there is something purer, more precious even, than the
gains of industry. They twine themselves around the
heart, call forth its best and purest emotions and
resources, enable us to be more virtuous, more upright,
more Christian, in all our relations of life. We see in
the little beings around us the elements of gentleness,
of truth, and the beauty of fidelity and religion. A
day of toil is robbed of many of its cares by the
thought that in the evening we may return home and
mingle with the family household. There, at least,
our experience teaches us we may find confiding and
loving bosoms, those who look up to and lean upon us,
and those also to whom we may look for counsel and
encouragement.

We say to our friends, one and all, cultivate the
home virtues, the household beauties of existence.
Endeavor to make the little circle of domestic life a
cheerful, an intelligent, a kindly, and a happy one.
Whatever may go wrong in the world of business and
trade, however arduous may be the struggle for fortune
or fame, let nothing mar the purity of reciprocal love,
or throw into its harmonious existence the apple of
discord.

In the intercourse of social life it is by little acts of
watchful kindness, recurring daily and hourly ; and
opportunities of doing kind acts, if sought for, are
forever starting up; it is by words, by tones, by ges-
tures, by looks, that affection is won and preserved.

400

KINDNESS.

He who neglects these trifles, yet boasts that, when-
ever a great sacrifice is called for, he shall be ready to
make it, will rarely be loved. The likelihood is he
will not make it ; and if he does, it will be much rather
for his own sake than for his neighbors. Life is made
up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things,
in which smiles, and kindness, and small obligations,
given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart,
and secure comfort.

Give no pain. Breathe not a sentiment, say not a
word, give not the expression of the countenance that
will offend another, or send a thrill of pain to his
bosom. We are surrounded by sensitive hearts, which
a word or look even, might fill to the brim with
sorrow. If you are careless of the opinions of others,
remember that they are differently constituted from
yourself, and never, by word or sign, cast a shadow on
a happy heart, or throw aside the smiles of joy that
linger on a pleasant countenance.

Many lose the opportunity of saying a kind thing by
waiting to weigh the matter too long. Our best
impulses are too delicate to endure much handling. If
you fail to give them expression the moment they rise,
they effervesce, evaporate, and are gone. If they do
not turn sour, they become flat, losing all life and
sparkle by keeping. Speak promptly when you feel
kindly.

Deal gently with the stranger. Remember the
severed cord of affection, still bleeding, and beware not
to wound by a thoughtless act, or a careless word. The
stranger ! he, perchance, has lived in an atmosphere of

KINDNESS.

401

love as warm as that we breathe. Alone and friend-
less now, he treasures the images of loved ones far
away, and when gentle words and warm kisses are
exchanged, we know not how his heart thrills and the
hot tear drops start. Speak gently. The impatient
word our friends may utter does not wound, so mailed
are you in the impenetrable armor of love. We know
that it was an inadvertant word that both will forget
in a moment after, or, if not, you can bear the censure
of one, when so many love you ; but keenly is an
unkind remark felt by the lone and friendless one.

Like a clinging vine torn from its support, the
stranger's heart begins to twine its tendrils around the
first object which is presented to it. Is love so cheap
a thing in this world, or have we already so much that
we can lightly cast off the instinctive affections thus
proffered? Oh, do not! To some souls an atmosphere
of love is as necessary as the vital air to the physical
system. A person of such a nature may clothe one in
imagination with all the attributes of goodness and
make his heart's sacrifices at the shrine. Let us
not cruelly destroy the illusion by unkindness.

Let the name of stranger be ever sacred, whether it
is that of an honored guest at our fire side, ar the poor
servant girl in our kitchen; the gray-haired or the
young*; and when we find ourselves far from friends,
and the dear associations of home, and so lonely, may
some kind, some angel-hearted being, by sympathizing
words and acts, cause our hearts to thrill with unspoken
gratitude, and thus we will find again the "bread"
long "cast upon the waters."
26

402

KINDNtiSS.

Our friends we must prize and appreciate while we
are with them. It is a shame not to know how much
we love our friends, and how good they are, till they
die. We must seize with joy all our opportunities ;
our duties we must perform with pleasure; our sacri-
fices we must make cheerfully, knowing that he who
sacrifices most is noblest ; we must forgive with an
understanding of the glory of forgiveness, and use the
blessings we have, realizing how great are small
blessings when properly accepted.

Hard words are like hail-stones in summer, beating
down and destroying what they would nourish if they
were melted into drops.

Kindness is stored awa\~ in the heart like rose-leaves
in a drawer, to sweeten every object around them.
Little drops of rain brighten the meadows, and little
acts of kindness brighten the world. We can conceive
of nothing more attractive than the heart when filled
with the spirit of kindness. Certainly nothing so em-
belishes human nature as the practice of this virtue; a
sentiment so genial and so excellent ought to be
emblazoned upon every thought and act of our life.
The principle underlies the whole theory of Christian-
ity, and in no other person do we find it more happily
exemplified than in the life of our Savior, who, wThile
on earth, went about doing- good. And how true it is
that

"A little word in kindness spoken.
A motion, or a tear,
Has often heal'd the heart that's broken,
And made a friend sincere!"

FRIENDSHIP.

403

Pure, disinterested friendship, is a bright flame,
emitting none of the smoke of selfishness, and seldom
deigns to tabernacle among men. Its origin is divine,
its operations heavenly, and its results enrapturing to
the soul. It is because it is the perfection of earthly
bliss that the world has ever been flooded with base
counterfeits, many so thickly coated with the pure
metal, that nothing but time can detect the base inte-
rior and ulterior designs of bogus friends. Deception
is a propensity deeply rooted in human nature, and the
hobby horse on which some ride through life. The
heart is deceitful above all things / who can know it?

Caution has been termed the parent of safety, but
has often been baffled by a Judas kiss. The most
cautious have been the dupes and victims of the basest
deceivers. We should be extremely careful who we
confide in, and then we will often find ourselves mis-
taken. Let adversity come, then we may know more
of our friends. Many will probably show that they
were sunshine friends, and will escape as for their lives,
like rats from a barn in flames! Ten to one, those who
have enjoyed the most sunshine will be the first to for-
sake, censure and reproach. Friendship, based entirely
on self, ends in desertion the moment the selfish ends
are accomplished or frustrated.

" Disguise so near the truth doth seem to run,
'Tis doubtful whom to seek or whom to shun ;
Nor know we when to spare or when to strike,
Our friends and foes they seem so much alike."

404

FRIENDSHIP.

Friendship is a flower that blooms in all seasons; it
may be seen flourishing on the snow-capped mountains
of Northern Russia, as well as in more favored valleys
of sunny Italy, everywhere cheering us by its exquisite
and indescribable charms. No surveyed chart, no
national boundary line, no rugged mountain or steep
declining vale put a limit to its growth. Wherever it
is watered with the dews of kindness and affection,
there you may be sure to find it. Allied in closest
companionship with its twin-sister, charity, it enters the
abode of sorrow and wretchedness, and causes happi-
ness and peace. It knocks at the lonely and discon-
solate heart, and speaks words of encouragement and
joy. Its all-powerful influence hovers over contending
armies and unites the deadly foes in the closest bonds
of sympathy and kindness. ■ Its eternal and universal
fragrance dispels every poisoned thought of envy, and
purifies the mind with a holy and priceless contentment
which all the pomp and power of earth could not
bestow. In vain do we look for this heavenly flower
in the cold, calculating worldling; the poor, deluded
wretch is dead to every feeling of its ennobling virtue.
In vain do we look for it in the actions of the proud and
aristocratic votaries of fashion; the love of self-display
and of the false and fleeting pleasures of the world, has
banished it forever from their hearts. In vain do we
look for it in the thoughtless and practical throng, who
with loud laugh and extended open hands, proclaim
obedience to its laws — while at the same time the
canker of malice and envy and detraction is enthroned
in their hearts and active on their tongues. Friendship,

FRIENDSHIP.

405

true friendship, can only be found to bloom in the soil
of a noble and self-sacrificing heart; there it has a
perennial summer, a never-ending season of felicity and
joy to its happy possessor, casting a thousand rays of
love and hope and peace to all around.

No one can be happy without a friend, and no one
can know what friends he has until he is unhappy.

It has been observed, that a real friend is somewhat
like a ghost or apparition ; much talked of, but hardly
ever seen. Though this may not be exactly true, it
must, however, be confessed, that a friend does not
appear every day, and that he who in reality has found
one, ought to value the boon, and be thankful.

Where persons are united by the bonds of genuine
friendship, there is nothing, perhaps, more conducive to
felicity. It supports and strengthens the mind, alle-
viates the pain of life, and renders the present state, at
4east, somewhat comfortable. "Sorrows," says Lord
Verulam, "by being communicated, grow less, and joys
greater." "And indeed," observes another, "sorrow,
like a stream, loses itself in many channels ; while joy, like
a ray of the sun, reflects with a greater ardor and
quickness when it rebounds upon a man from the breast
of his friend."

The friendship which is founded upon good tastes and
congenial habits, apart from piety, is permitted by the
benignity of Providence to embellish a world, which,
with all its magnificence and beauty, will shortly pass
away ; that which has religion for its basis will ere long
be transplanted in order to adorn the paradise of God.

There is true enjoyment in that friendship which has

406

FRIENDSHIP.

its source in the innocence and uprightness of a true
heart. Such pleasures do greatly sweeten life, easing it
from many a bitter burden. A sympathizing heart
finds an echo in sympathizing bosoms that bring back
cheering music to the spirit of the loveliest. Be all
honor, then, to true friendship, and may it gather yet
more fragrant blossoms from the dew-bathed meadows
of social intercourse, to spread their aroma along the
toil-worn road of life. What a blessing it is to have a
friend to whom one can speak fearlessly upon any sub-
ject ; with whom one's deepest thoughts come simply
and safely. O, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort,
of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh
the thoughts nor measure the words, but pouring them
all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together,
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them ;
keep what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath
of kindness, blow the rest away.

If any form an intimacy merely for what they can
gain by it, this is not true friendship in such a person.
It must be free from any such selfish view, and only
design mutual benefit as each may require. Again, it
must be unreserved. It is true indeed that friends are
not bound to reveal to each other all their family con*
cerns, but they should be ever ready to disclose what
may in any point of view concern each other. Lastly,
it is benevolent. Friends must study to please and
oblige each other in the most delicate, kind, and liberal
manner ; and that in poverty and trouble, as well as in
riches or prosperity. The benevolence of friends is also
manifested in overlooking each other's faults, and, in the

FRIENDSHIP. 407

most tender manner, admonishing eaeh other when they
do amiss. Upon the whole, the purse, the heart, and
the house ought to be open to a friend, and in no case
can we shut out either of them, unless upon clear proofs
of treachery, immorality, or some other great crime.

The first law of friendship is sincerity ; and he who
violates this law, will soon find himself destitute of what
he so erringly seeks to gain ; for the deceitful heart of
such an one will soon betray itself, and feel the contempt
due to insincerity. The world is so full of selfishness,
that true friendship is seldom found ; yet it is often
sought for paltry gain by the base and designing.
Behold that toiling miser, with his ill-got and worthless
treasures ; his soul is never moved by the hallowed
influence of the sacred boon of friendship, which renews
again on earth lost Eden's faded bloom, and flings hope's
halcyon halo over the wastes of life. The envious
man — he, too, seeks to gain the applause of others for
an unholy usage, by which he may usurp a seat of pre-
eminence for himself. Self-love, the spring of motion,
acts upon his soul. All are fond of praise, and many
are dishonest in the use of means to obtain it ; hence it
is often difficult to distinguish between true and false
friendship.

408

COURTSHIP.

All the blessedness, all the utility, efficacy, and
happiness of the married state, depends upon its truth-
fulness, or the wisdom of the union. Marriage is not
necessarily a blessing. It may be the bitterest curse.
It may sting like an adder and bite like a serpent. Its
bower is as often made of thorns as of roses. It blasts
as many sunny expectations as it realizes. Every im-
proper marriage is a living misery, an undying death.
Its bonds are grated bars of frozen iron. It is a spirit
prison, cold as the dungeon of ruin. An illy-mated
human pair is the most woeful picture of human wretch-
edness that is presented in the book of life; and yet,
such pictures are plenty. Every page we turn gives us
a view of some such living bondage. But a proper
marriage, a true interior, soul-linked union is a living
picture of blessedness, unrivaled in beauty. A true
marriage is the soul's Eden. It is the portal of heaven.
It is the visiting-place of angels. It is the charm inde-
scribable of a spirit in captivation with all imaginable
beauty and loveliness. It is a constant peace-offering,
that procures a continual Sabbath day sweetness, rich
as the quietude of reposing angels. It is not given to
words to express the refinement of pleasure, the delicacy
of joy and the abounding fullness of satisfaction that
those feel whom God hath joined in a high marriage of
spirit. Such a union is the highest school of virtue, the
soul's convent, where the vestal fires of purity are kept
continually burning.

COURTSHIP.

409

Marriage, then, should be made a study. Every
youth, both male and female, should so consider it. It
is the grand social institution of humanity. Its laws
and relations are of momentous importance to the race.
Shall it be entered blindly, in total ignorance of what
it is, what its conditions of happiness are?

"Marriage is a lottery," exclaim so many men and
women you meet. And why is it so? Simply because
courtship is a grand scheme of deception, Is it not so?
Who courts hojiestly f Some, it is true ; but few, indeed.
Let us see, it is conducted something like this: A
young man and woman meet at a party, ball, school, or
church. The young man sees something in the lady
that attracts his attention; it may be her pretty face
her golden curls, her flashing eyes, her delicate hand or
slender waist, or snowy neck, or graceful carriage, or
more likely, the 'plumage in which the bird shines. He
looks again, and then again, and without one particle
of sense or reason for it, save that he has caught the
fair one's eye, his attraction rises into captivation. He
seeks an introduction. A little parley of nonsense
ensues, about fashion, parties, beaux and belles, and a
few jokes pass about "invitations," "captivations,"
"runaway matches," etc.; then an appointment for
another meeting, a walk, a visit to a saloon, a neighbor,
or something of the kind, follows, and they part, both
determined, in the utmost desperation, to catch the
prize, if possible. They dream, and sing, and make
verses about each other, and meditate ways and means
to appear captivating at the next meeting, till it arrives,
when, lo ! they meet, all wreathed in smiles and shining

410

COURTSHIP.

in beautiful things. How can it be otherwise than that
their captivation shall become absolute adoration now.
The afternoon and evening are spent together, each in
perfect delight. They talk about flowers, and stars,
and poetry, and give hints, and signs, and tokens, till
each understands the other's captivations.

They are engaged and get married.

Married life now comes and ushers in its morning
glory, and they are happy as a happy pair can well be
for a while. But "life is real," and character is real,
and love is real. When life's reality comes they find
things in each other's characters that perfectly startle
them. Every day reveals something new and some-
thing unpleasant. The courtship character slowly fades
away, and with it the courtship love. Now comes
disappointment, sorrow, regret. They find that their
characters are entirely dissimilar. Married life is a
burden, full of cares, vexations, and disappointments.
But they must make the best of it, and bear it
through. Yes, marriage is a lottery. They know it.
Some may get prizes, and some may not. No one
knows before he draws, whether he will draw a blank
or a prize. This is their conclusion. They did not
court in the right way. They courted by impulse, and
not by judgment; it was a process of wooing, and not
of discovery; it was an effort to please, and not a
search for companionship; it was done with excitement,
and not with calmness and deliberation; it was done in
haste, and not with cautious prudence; it was a vision
of the heart, and not a solemn reality; it was conducted
by feeling, and not by reason; it was so managed as to

COURTSHIP.

411

be a perpetual blandishment of pleasure, the most intox-
icating and delightful, and not a trying ordeal for the
enduring realities of solid and stubborn life; it was a
perpetual yielding up of every thing, and not a firm
maintaining of every thing that belongs to the man or
woman. In almost every particular it was false, and
Iience must be followed by evil consequences. All
similar courting is bad.

Courtship, as it is generally conducted, is a game at
"blind-man's-buff," only that both parties are blinded.
They voluntarily blind themselves, and then blind each
other; and thus they "go it blind," till their eyes are
opened in marriage. It is necessary for the youth of
both sexes to be perfectly honest in their intercourse
with each other, so as to exhibit always their true
character and nature. Dishonesty is, perhaps, a greater
barrier even than ignorance to a proper understanding
of the real character of those with whom we contem
plate matrimonial alliances. Young men and women
are not true to themselves. They put on false charac-
ters. They assume airs not their own. They shine in
borrowed plumes. They practice every species of
deception for the concealment of their real characters.
They study to appear better than they are. They
seek, by the adornments of dress and gems, by the
blandishments of art and manner, by the allurements of
smiles and honeyed words, by the fascination of pleasure
and scenes of excitement, to add unreal, unpossessed
charms to their persons and characters. They appear
in each others society to be the embodiment of good-
ness and sweetness, the personification of lofty principle

412

COURTSHIP.

and holy love, when, in fact, they are full of human
weaknesses and frailties.

W e have remarked that the ostensible object of court-
ship is the choice of a companion. It is not to woo; it
is not to charm or gratify, or please, simply for the
present pleasure ; it is not for the present sweets of such
an intimate and confiding intercourse. It is simply and
plainly for the selection of a life companion; one who
must bear, suffer, and enjoy life with us in all its frowns
and smiles, joys and sorrows; one who can walk pleas-
antly, willingly, and confidingly, by our side, through
all the intricate and changing vicissitudes incident to
mortal life. Now, how shall courtship be conducted so
as to make marriage a certainty and not a lottery ?
This is the question.

Now let us ask what is to be sought ? You answer,
a companion. What is a companion ? A congenial
spirit, one possessed of an interior constitution of soul
similar to our own, of similar age, opinions, tastes, habits,
modes of thought, and feeling. A congenial spirit is
one who, under any given combination of circumstances,
would be affected, and feel and act as we ourselves
would. It is one who would enjoy what we would enjoy,
dislike what we would dislike, approve what we would
approve, and condemn what we would condemn, not for
the purpose of agreeing with us, but of his or her own
free will. This is a companion; one who is kindred in
soul with us; who is already united to us by the ties
of spiritual harmony; which union it is the object of
courtship to discover. Courtship, then, is a voyage of
discovery; or a court of inquiry, established by mutual

FLIRTING.

413

onsent of the parties, to see wherein and to what
extent there is a harmony existing. If in all these they
honestly and inmostly agree, and find a deep and thril-
ling pleasure in their agreement, find their union of
sentiment to give a charm to their social intercourse;
if now they feel that their hearts are bound as well as
their sentiments in a holy unity, and that for each other
they would live, and labor, and make every personal
sacrifice with gladness, and that without each other
they know not how to live, it is their privilege, yes,
their duty, to form a matrimonial alliance. And it will
not be a lottery. They know what they are to give
and what they are to get. They will be married in the
full blaze of light and love, and be married for a happy,
virtuous, and useful union, to bless themselves and the
world with a living type of heaven.

The ostensible object of courtship is the choice of a
companion. For no other object should any intercourse
having the appearance of courtship be permitted or
indulged in. It is a species of high-handed fraud upon
an unsuspecting heart, worthy of the heaviest penalty
of public opinion, or law. The affections are too tender
and sacred to be trifled with. He who does it is a
wretch. He should be ranked among thieves, robbers,
villains, and murderers. He who steals money steals

414 FLIRTING.

trash; but he who steals affections without a return of
similar affections steals that which is dearer than life
and more precious than wealth. His theft is a robbery
of the heart.

Flirting is a horrid outrage upon the most holy and
exalted feelings of the human soul, and the most sacred
and important relation of life. It is a vulgarism and
wickedness to be compared only to blasphemy. It had,
and still has, its origin in the basest lust. The refined
soul is always disgusted with it. It is awfully demoral-
izing in its tendency, and low and base in its character.
It is true, many bandy their low jokes upon this matter
in thoughtlessness; but if they would take one moment's
sober reflection upon it, they would see the impropriety
of jesting about the most delicate, serious, and sacred
feelings and relations in human existence. The whole
tendency of such lightness is to cause the marriage
relation to be lightly esteemed, and courtship to be
made a round of low fun and frolic, in which every
species of deception is endeavored to be played off.
Until it is viewed in its true light, in that sober earnest-
ness which the subject demands, how can courtship be
anything else than a grand game of hypocrisy, result-
ing in wickedness and misery the most ruinous and
deplorable ?

There is much trifling courting among the young in
some portions of the country that results in such
calamitous consequences; carried on sometimes when
the young man means nothing but present pleasure, and
sometimes when the young woman has no other object
in view. Such intercourse is confined mostly to young

FLIRTING.

415

men and women before they are of age. It is a crying
evil, worthy of the severest censure.

A case was recently tried in Rutland, Vermont, in
which a Miss Munson recovered fourteen hundred and
twenty-five dollars of a Mr. Hastings for a breach of
marriage contract. The curiosity of the thing is this:
The Vermont judge charged the jury that no explicit
promise was necessary to bind the parties to a marriage
contract, but that long continued attentions or intimacy
with a female was as good evidence of intended matri-
mony as a special contract. The principle of the case
undoubtedly is, that if Hastings did not promise, he
ought to have done so — the law holds him responsible
for the non-performance of his duty. A most excellent
decision. We think if there were more such cases
there would be less flirting.

fOne of the meanest things a young man can do (and
it is not at all of uncommon occurrence) is to mono-
polize the time and attention of a young girl for a year,
or more, without any definite objec^ and to the exclu-
sion of other gentlemen, who, supposing him to have
matrimonial intentions, absent themselves from her
society. This selfish " dog-in-the-manger " way of
proceeding should be discountenanced and forbidden
by all parents and guardians. It prevents the reception
of eligible offers of marriage, and fastens upon the
young lady, when the acquaintance is finally dissolved,
the unenviable and unmerited appellation of "flirt.'
Let all your dealings with women, young man, be
frank, honest and noble. That many whose education
and position in life would warrant our looking for

416

BACHELORS.

better things, are culpably criminal on these points, is
no excuse for your shortcomings. That woman is often
injured, or wronged, through her holiest feelings, adds
but a blacker dye to your meanness. One rule is always
safe : Treat every woman you meet as you would wish
another man to treat your innocent, confiding sister.

Marriage has a great refining and moralizing
tendency. Nearly all the debauchery and crime is
committed by unmarried men, or by those who have
wives equal to none, at least to them. When a man
marries early, and uses prudence in choosing a suitable
companion, he is likely to lead a virtuous, happy life.
But in an unmarried state, all alluring vices have a
tendency to draw him away. We notice in the State
penitentiary reports that nearly all the criminals are
bachelors. The more married men you have, the
fewer crimes there will be. Marriage renders a man
more virtuous and more wise. An unmarried man is
but half of a perfect being, and it requires the other
half to make things right; and it cannot be expected
that in this imperfect state he can keep straight in the
path of rectitude any more than a boat with one oar
can keep a straight course. In nine cases out of ten,
where married men become drunkards, or where they
commit crimes against the peace of the community,

BACHELORS.

417

the foundation of these acts was laid while in a single
state, or where the wife is, as is sometimes the case,
an unsuitable match. Marriage changes the current
of a man's feelings and gives him a center for his
thoughts, his affections and his acts.

If it were intended for man to be single, there would
be no harm in remaining so; and, on the other hand, it
would become a crime if any persons would unite and
live as wedded. But, since this is not the Divine law,
it is a sin and crime if men do not marry, and live as
designed.

Marriage is a school and exercise of virtue; and
though marriage hath cares, yet single life hath
desires, which are more troublesome and more dan-
gerous, and often end in sin; while the cares are
but exercises of piety; and, therefore, if the single
life hath more privacy of devotion, yet marriage
hath more variety of it, and is an exercise of more
graces. Marriage is the proper scene of piety and
patience, of the duty of parents and the charity of
relations; here kindness is spread abroad, and love is
united and made firm as a center. Marriage is the
nursery of heaven. The virgin sends prayers to God;
but she carries but one soul to him; but the state of
her marriage fills up the numbers of the elect, and
hath in it the labor of love, and the delicacies of
friendship, the blessings of society, and the union of
hearts and hands. It hath in it more safety than the
single life; it hath more care, it is more merry and
more sad; is fuller of sorrows and fuller of joys; it
lies under more burdens, but is supported by all the
27

418

BACHELORS.

•strength of love and charity which makes those bur-
dens delightful. Marriage is the mother of the world,
and preserves kingdoms, and fills cities, and churches,
and heaven itself, and is that state of good things to
which God hath designed the present constitution of
the world.

W e advise every young man to get married. The
chances are better by fifty per cent., all through life,
in every respect. There is no tear shed for the old
bachelor; there is no ready hand and kind heart to
cheer him in his loneliness and bereavement; there is
none in whose eyes he can see himself reflected, and
from whose lips he can receive the unfailing assurances
of care and love. He may be courted for his money;
he may eat and drink and revel; and he may sicken
and die in a hotel or a garret, with plenty of attend-
ants about him, like so many cormorants waiting foi
their prey; but he will never know the comforts of the
domestic fireside.

The guardians of the Holborn Union lately adver-
tised for candidates to fill the situation of engineer at
the work-house, a single man, a wife not being allowed
to reside on the premises. Twenty-one candidates
presented themselves, but it was found that as to testi-
monials, character, workmanship, and appearance, the
best men were all married men. The guardians had
therefore to elect a married man.

A man who avoids matrimony on account of the
cares of wedded life, cuts himself off from a great
blessing for fear of a trifling annoyance. He rivals
the wise-acre who secured himself against corns by

INFLUENCE OF MATRIMONY.

■119

having his legs amputated. My bachelor brother,
there cannot, by any possibility, be a home where
there is no wife. To talk of a home without love,
we might as well expect to find an American fireside
in one of the pyramids of Egypt.

There is a world of wisdom in the following:
"Every schoolboy knows that a kite would not fly
unless it had a string tying it down. It is just so
in life. The man who is tied down by half-a-dozen
bloorrrng responsibilities and their mother, will make
a higher and stronger flight than the bachelor who,
having nothing to keep him steady, is always floun-
dering in the mud. If you want to ascend in the
world, tie yourself to somebody. "

Marriage is an occasion on which none refuse to
sympathize. Would that all were equally able and
willing to understand! Would that all could know
how, from the first flow of the affections till they are
shed abroad in all their plenitude, the purposes of their
creation become fulfilled. They were to life like a
sleeping ocean to a bright but barren and silent shore.
When the breeze from afar awakened it, new lights
began to gleam, and echoes to be heard; rich and
unthought-of treasures were cast up from the depths;
the barriers of individuality were broken down; and

420

INFLUENCE OF MATRIMONY.

from henceforth, they who choose may "hear the
mighty waters rolling evermore." Would that all
could know how, by this mighty impulse, new strength
is given to every power — how the intellect is vivified
and enlarged — how the spirit becomes bold to explore
the path of life, and clear-sighted to discern its issues!

Marriage is, to a woman, at once the happiest and
saddest event of her life; it is the promise of future
bliss, raised on the death of all present enjoyment.
She quits her home, her parents, her companions, her
occupations, her amusements — her everything upon
which she has hitherto depended for comfort — for
affection, for kindness, for pleasure. The parents by
whose advice she has been guided, the sister to whom
she has dared impart every embryo thought and feel-
ing, the brother who has played with her, in turns the
counselor and the counseled, and the younger children
to whom she has hitherto been the mother and the
playmate — all are to be forsaken in one instant; every
former tie is loosened, the spring of every hope and
action to be changed, and yet she flies with joy into
the untrodden paths before her. Buoyed up by the
confidence of requited love, she bids a fond and grate-
ful adieu to the life that is past, and turns with excited
hopes and joyous anticipations of the happiness to
come. Then woe to the man who can blast such
hopes — who can, coward-like, break the illusions that
have won her, and destroy the confidence which his
love inspired.

There is no one thing more lovely in this life, more
full of the divinest courage, than when a young maiden,

' INFLUENCE OF MATRIMONY. 421

from her past life, from her happy childhood, when she
rambled over every field and moor around her home;
when a • mother anticipated her wants and soothed her
little cares; when brothers and sisters grew from
merry playmates to loving, trustful friends; from the
Christmas gatherings and romps, the summer festivals
in bower or garden; from the rooms sanctified by the
death of relatives; from the holy and secure back-
grounds of her childhood, and girlhood, and maiden-
hood, looks out into a dark and . unillumined future,
away from all that, and yet unterrified, undaunted,
leans her fair cheek upon her lover's breast, and whis-
pers, "Dear heart! I cannot see, but I believe. The
past was beautiful, but the future I can trust with
thee!"

Wherever woman plights her truth, under the sky
of heaven, at the domestic hearth, or in the conse-
crated aisles, the ground is holy, the spirit of the hour
is sacramental. That it is thus felt even by the most
trivial may be observed at the marriage ceremony.
Though the mirth may be fast and furious before or
after the irrevocable formula is spoken, yet at that
point of time there is a shadow on the most laughing
lip — a moisture in the firmest eye. Wedlock, indis-
soluble, except by an act of God — a sacrament whose
solemnity reaches to eternity — will always hold its
rank in literature, as the most impressive fact of human
experience in dramatic writing, whether of the stage
or closet, the play or novel. It must be so. If govern-
ment, with all its usurpations and aggressions, has
appropriated history, let the less ambitious portions

422

INFLUENCE OF MATRIMONY.

of our literature be sacred to the affections — to the
family, based upon conjugal and parental love, as that
institution is the state which hitherto in the world's
annals, has been little else than the sad exponent of
human ambition.

A judicious wife is always snipping off from her
husband's moral nature, little twigs that are growing
in the wrong direction. She keeps him in shape by
continual pruning. If you say anything silly, she will
affectionately tell s you so. If you declare you will do
some absurd thing, she will rind means of preventing
you from doing it. And by far the chief part of all
common sense there is in this world belongs unques-
tionably to woman. The wisest things which a man
commonly does are those which his wife counsels him
to do. A wife is the grand wielder of the moral
pruning knife. When you see a man appearing shabby,
hair uncombed, and no buttons on his coat, nine times
out of ten you are correct in concluding that he is a.
bachelor. You can conclude much the same when you
see a man profane, or speaking vulgarly of ladies. We
would add that young men who wish to appear well in
every respect should get married. It has been well
said, UA man unmarried is but a half a man."

It was thus, surely, that intellectual beings of differ-
ent sexes were intended by their great Creator to go-
through the world together; thus united, not only in.
hand and heart, but in principles, in intellect, in views,,
and in dispositions; each pursuing one common and
noble end — their own improvement and the happiness
of those around them — by the different means appro-

INFLUENCE OF MATRIMONY.

42$

priate to their situation; mutually correcting, sustaining
and strengthening each other; undegraded by all prac-
tices of tyranny on the one hand and of deceit on the
other; each finding a candid but severe judge in the
understanding, and a warm and partial advocate in
the heart of their companion; secure of a refuge from
the vexations, the follies, the misunderstandings and the
evils of the world in the arms of each other, and in the
inestimable enjoyments of undisturbed confidence and
unrestrained intimacy.

The law that binds the one man to the one woman is,
indelibly written by nature, that wherever it is violated
in general system, the human race is found to deter-
iorate in mind and form. The ennobling influences of
women cease; the wife is a companion — a hundred,
wives are but a hundred slaves. Nor is this all, unless
man looks to a woman as a treasure to be wooed and
won — her smile the charm of his existence — her single
heart the range of his desires — that which deserves
the name of love cannot exist; it is struck out of the
hateful system of society. Now, if there be a passion
in the human breast which most tends to lift us out of
egotism and self, which most teaches us to love another,,
which purifies and warms the whole mortal being, it is
love, as we of the North hold it and cherish it. For
even when the fair spring of youth has passed, and
when the active life is employed in such grave pursuits
that the love of his early years seems to him like a
dream of romance, still that love, having once lifted
him out of egotism into sympathy, does but pass into
new forms and development — it has locked his heart

424

INFLUENCE OF MATRIMONY:

to charity and benevolence — it gives a smile to his
home — it rises up in the e}/es of his children — from his
heart it circulates insensibly on to all the laws that
protect the earth, to the native lands which spread
around it. Thus in the history of the world we dis-
cover that wherever love is created, as it were, and
sanctioned by that equality between the sexes which
the permanent and holy union of one heart with another
proclaims; there, too, patriotism, liberty — the manly
and gentle virtues — also find their place; and wherever,
on the contrary, polygamy is practiced and love disap-
pears in the gross satiety of the senses, there we find
neither respect for humanity nor reverence for home,
nor affection for the natal soil. And one reason why
Greece is contrasted in all that dignifies our nature, the
effeminate and dissolute character of the East which it
overthrew, is, that Greece was. the earliest civilized
country in which, on the borders of those great mon-
archies, marriage was the sacred tie between one man
and one woman — and man was the thoughtful father
of a home, not the wanton lord of a seraglio.

Nothing delights me more than to enter the neat
little tenement of the young couple, who, within per-
haps two or three years, without any resources but
their own knowledge or industry, have joined heart
and hand, and engaged to share together the responsi-
bilities, duties, interests, trials and pleasures of life.
The industrious wife is cheerfully employed with her
own hands in domestic duties, putting her house in
order, or mending her husband's clothes, or preparing
the dinner, whilst, perhaps, the little darling sits prat-

INFL U ENOE OF MATRIMONY.

425

tling on the floor, or lies sleeping in the cradle, and
every thing seems preparing to welcome the happiest
of husbands, and the best of fathers, when he shall
come from his toil to enjoy the sweets of his little para-
dise. This is the true domestic pleasure. Health,
contentment, love, abundance, and bright prospects,
are all here. But it has become a prevalent sentiment
that a man must acquire his fortune before he marries,
that the wife must have no sympathy nor share with
him in the pursuit of it, in which most of the pleasure
truly consists; and the young married people must set
out with as large and expensive an establishment as is
becoming to those who have been wedded for twenty
years. This is very unhappy; it fills the community
with bachelors, who are waiting to make their fortunes^
endangering virtue and promoting vice; it destroys the
true economy and design of the domestic institution,
and inefficiency among females, who are expecting to
be taken up by fortune and passively sustained, without
any care or concern on their part; and thus many a
wife becomes, as a gentleman once remarked, not a
a help-mate,'1 but a " help-eat."

The Creator found that it was not good for man to
be alone. Therefore he made woman to be a "help-
meet for him." And for many ages history has shown
that "the permanent union of one man with one woman
establishes a relation of affections and interests which
can in no other way be made to exist between two
human beings." To establish this relation was one of
the great designs of God in giving the rite to man ; and
by establishing this relation, marriage becomes to him

426

INFLUENCE OF MATRIMON Y.

an aid in the stern conflict of life. This it is in a theo-
retical point of view. This, too, it has often proved in
practical life. Many a man has risen from obscurity to
fame, who, in the days of his triumphant victory, has
freely and gratefully acknowledged, that to the sympa
thy and encouragement of his wife, during the long
and weary years of toil, he owed very much of his
achieved success.

But while young men say they cannot marry because
the girls of this generation are too extravagant, the
fault by no means is altogether with the girls. In the
first place, young men as a general thing, admire the
elegant costumes in which many ladies appear, and do
not hesitate to express their admiration to those who
are more plainly dressed. And what is the natural
effect of this? In the second place many young men
are too proud themselves to commence their married
life in a quiet, economical way. They are not willing
to marry until they have money enough to continue all
their own private luxuries, and also support a wife in
style. The difficulty is not altogether on either side;
but if both men and women would be true to the best
feelings of their hearts, and careless about what the
world would say, pure and happy and noble homes
would be more abundant. This state of affairs is very
unfortunate for both parties. It leaves woman without
a home and without protection or support. Woman
needs the strength and courage of man, and he needs
her cheerfulness, her sympathy, her consolation. Our
papers tell us, that in a single New England city, there
are nearly thirty thousand young men, already engaged,

AD VANTAGE OF MATRIMONY.

who arc putting off marriage until they can make
enough to support their wives. So it is throughout
the country. Young men need the restraining and
elevating influences of home. But as it is now the
man must commence business alone, fight his own
battles without sympathy or consolation, win, if possible,
by years of arduous toil, a competence; and when the
conflict is over, the toil is past and the victory is won,
then he can have a wife and a home. A man to suc-
ceed well in life needs the influence of a pure-minded
woman, and her sympathy to sweeten the cup of life.

Marriage has in it less of beauty, but more of
safety than the single life; it hath no more ease, but;
less danger; it is more merry and more sad; it is fuller
of sorrows and fuller of joys ; it lies under more bur-
dens, but it is supported by all the strengths of love
and charity, and those burdens are delightful. Mar-
riage is the mother of the world, and preserves king-
doms, and Alls cities and churches, and heaven itself.
Celibacy, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells,
in perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined
and dies in singularity; but marriage, like the useful
bee, builds a house, and gathers honey from every
flower, and labors, and unites into societies and repub-
lics, and sends out colonies, and feeds the world with-

428

AD VANTAGE OF MATRIMONY,

delicacies, and obeys its king, and keeps order, and exer-
cises many virtues, and promotes the interests of man-
kind, and is that state of good to which God hath
designed the present constitution of the world.

If you are for pleasure, marry; if you prize rosy
health, marry. A good wife is heaven's last best gift
to man; his angel of mercy; minister of graces innu-
merable ; his gem of many virtues ; his casket of jewels.
Her voice his sweetest music; her smiles his brightest
days ; her kiss the guardian of innocence ; her arms the
pale of his safety, the balm of his health, the balsam of
his life; her industry his surest wealth; her economy
his safest steward; her lips his faithful counselor; her
bosom the softest pillow of his cares; and her prayers
the ablest advocates of heaven's blessings on his head.

Woman's influence is the sheet anchor of society;
and this influence is due not exclusively to the fascina-
tion of her charms, but chiefly to the strength, uni-
formity, and consistency of her virtues, maintained
under so many sacrifices, and with so much fortitude
and heroism. Without these endowments and quali-
fications, external attractions are nothing; but with
them, their power is irresistible.

Beauty and virtue are the crowning attributes be-
stowed by nature upon woman, and the bounty of
heaven more than compensates for the injustice of man.
Sometimes we hear both sexes repine at their change,
relate the happiness of their earlier years, blame the
folly and rashness of their own choice, and warn those
whom they see coming into the world against the same
precipitance and infatuation. But it is to be remem-

AD VANTAGE OF MATRIMONY.

42$

bered that the days which they so much wish to call
back, are the days not only of celibacy but of youth?
the days of novelty and improvement, of ardor and of
hope, of health and vigor of body, of gayety and light-
ness of heart. It is not easy to surround life with any
circumstances in which youth will not be delightful;
and we are afraid that whether married or unmarried,
we shall find the vesture of terrestrial existence more
heavy and cumbrous the longer it is worn.

Once for all, there is no misery so distressiul as the
desperate agony of trying to keep young when one
can't. We know an old bachelor who has attempted it.
His affectation of youth, like all affectations, is a mel-
ancholy failure. He is a rapid young man of fifty. He
plies innocent young ladies with the pretty compliments
and soft nothings in vogue when he was a spooney
youth of twenty. The fashion of talking to young
ladies has changed within thirty years, you know, and
this aged boy's soft nothings seem more out of date
than a two-year-old bonnet. They make you think>
somehow, of that time-honored frog-story, wherein is
set forth the discovery of galvanic electricity. When
you see his old-fashioned young antics — his galvanic
gallantry, so to speak, and hear the speeches he makes
'to girls in their teens, when he ought to be talking to
them like a father — you involuntarily call him an old
idiot, and long to remind him of that quaint rebuke of
grand old John: "Thou talkest like one upon whose
head the shell is to this very day." That is how he
seems. He is old enough to have been almost full-
fledged before you were born, and here he is trying ta

430

YOUNG 31 EN AND MARRIAGE.

make believe that he is still in the days of his gosling-
green, with the shell sticking on his head to this day!
It is a melancholy absurdity. One can't be }7oung
unless one is young. Only once is it given to us to
be untried and soft, and gushing and superlative, and
when the time comes for it all to go, no sort of effort
can hold back the fleeting days.

"I wish that I had married thirty years ago,'1 solil-
oquized an old bachelor. "Oh! I wish a wife and half
a score of children would start up around me, and
bring along with them all that affection which we
should have had for each other by being early ac-
quainted. But as it is, in my present state there is
not a person in the world I care a straw for; and the
world is pretty even with me, for I don't believe there
is a person in it who cares a straw for me."

A young man meets a pretty face in the ball-room,
falls in love with it, courts it, marries it, goes tc house-
keeping with it, and boasts of having a home and a
wife to grace it. The chances are, nine to ten, that he
has neither. He has been "taken in and done for!"
Her pretty face gets to be an old story, or becomes
faded, or freckled, or fretted, and as the face was all he
wanted, all he paid attention to, all he sat up with, all
he bargained for, all he swore to love, honor and pro-

YOUNG MEN AND MARRIAGE.

431

tect, he gets sick of his trade, knows of a dozen faces
he likes better, gives up staying at home evenings, con-
soles himself with cigars, oysters and politics, and looks
upon his home as a very indifferent boarding-house.

Another young man becomes enamored of a "for-
tune.71 He waits upon it to parties, dances a polka
with it, exchanges billet doux with it, pops the question
to it, gets accepted by it, takes it to the parson, weds
it, calls it "wife," carries it home, sets up an establish-
ment with it, introduces it to his friends, and says he,
too, is married and has got a home. It is false. He is
not married; he has no home. And he soon finds it
out. He is in the wrong box; but it is too late to get
out of it ; he might as well hope to get out of his coffin.
His friends congratulate him, and he has to grin and
bear it.

If a young man would escape these sad consequences,
let him shun the rocks upon which so many have made
shipwreck. Let him disregard, totally, all considera-
tions of wealth, beauty, external accomplishments,
fashion, connections in society, and every other mere
selfish and worldly end, and look into the mind and
heart of the woman he thinks of marrying. If he can-
not love her for herself alone — that is, for all that goes
to make up her character as a woman — let him dis-
regard every external inducement, and shun a marriage
with her as the greatest evil to which he could be
subjected. And if he have in him a spark of virtuous
feeling — if he have one unselfish and generous emo-
tion— he will shun such a marriage for the woman's

432

YOUNG MEN AND MARRIAGE.

sake also, for it would be sacrificing her happiness as
well as his own.

From what is here set forth every young man can
see how vitally important it is for him to make his
choice in marriage from a right end. Wealth cannot
bring happiness, and is ever in danger of taking to
itself wings; beauty cannot last long where there is
grief at the heart; and distinguished connections are a
very poor substitute for the pure love of a true woman's
heart.

All that has been said refers to the ends which should
govern in the choice of a wife. Directions as to the
choice itself can only be of a general character, for the
circumstances surrounding each one, and the particular
circles into which he is thrown, will have specific
influences, which will bias the judgment either one way
or another. One good rule it will, however, be well to
observe, and that is, to be on your guard against those
young ladies who seek evidently to attract your atten-
tion. It is unfeminine and proves that there is some-
thing wanting to make up the perfect woman. In
retiring modesty you will be far more apt to find the
virtues after which you are seeking. A brilliant belle
may make a loving, faithful wife and mother; but the
chances are somewhat against her, and a prudent young
man will satisfy himself well by a close observation of
her in private and domestic life before he makes up his
mind to offer her his hand.

There are many, too many finely educated young
ladies who can charm you with their brilliance of intel-
lect, their attainments in science and literature, or their

YOUNG MEN AND MAURI AO E. 43o

music, who know not the rudiments of how to make a
home comfortable and inviting. Some will frankly
confess it, with sorrow, others boast of this ignorance
as something to be proud of. How many such women
marry and make an utter failure of life. They make a
wreck of their husbands happiness, of the home he
had doted on, of his -fortune, and, alas, too often of his
character, and his souPs interest. You see them
abroad, and are delighted to have made their acquaint-
ance, but you find their homes slipshod homes, sadly
contrasting with the really cultivated manners and
mind which so attracted you.

When you see the avaricious and crafty taking com-
panions to themselves without any inquiry but after
farms and money, or the giddy and thoughtless uniting
themselves for life to those whom they have only seen
by the light of tapers; when parents make articles for
children without inquiring after their consent; when
some marry for heirs to disappoint their brothers, and
others throw themselves into the arms ©f those whom
the}^ do not love, because they have found themselves
rejected where they were more solicitous to please;
when some marry because their servants cheat them;
some because they squander their own money; some
because their houses are pestered with company; some
because they will live like other people; and some
because they are sick of themselves, we are not so
much inclined to wonder that marriage is sometimes
unhappy, as that it appears so little loaded with
calamity, and cannot but conclude that society hath
something in itself eminently agreeable to human
28

434

rQUNG MEN AND MARRIAGE. '

nature, when we find its pleasures so great that even
the ill-choice of a companion can hardly overbalance
them. Those, therefore, of the above description that
should rail against matrimony should be informed that
they are neither to wonder nor repine, that a contract
begun on such principles has ended in disappointment.
A young man and a dear friend once said to me, " I am
going to take her for better or for worse." The
remark ran over me like a chill breath of winter. I
shuddered at the thought. "For better or for worse."
All in doubt. Going to marry, yet not sure he was
right. The lady he spoke of was a noble young woman,
intellectual, cultivated, pious, accustomed to his sphere
of life. They were going to marry in uncertainty.
Both were of fine families; both excellent young peo-
ple. To the world it looked like a desirable match.
To them it was going to be "for better or for worse."
They married. The woman stayed in his home one
year and left it, declaring he was a good man and a
faultless husband, but not after her heart. She stayed
away one year and came back ; lived with him one
year more and died. Sad tale. It proved for the
worse, and all because they did not know each other;
if they had they would not have married.

Marriage is the seal of man's earthly weal or woe.
No event is to be compared with this for its interest
and its immeasurable results. Why are so many
inhappy in this union, never indeed truly married ?
Because they rush into its sacred temple, either de-
luded or unsanctified by God and good principles.
They sin in haste, and are left to repent at leisure.

YOUNG MEN AND MARRIAGE.

435

Custom, convenience, proximity, passion, vicious novels,
-silly companions, intoxicate the brain; and that step is
taken without one serious thought, which death only
can retrieve.

Robert Southey says : " A man may be cheerful and
contented in celibacy, but I do not think he can ever be
happy; it is an unnatural state, and the best feelings of
his nature are never called into action. The risks of
marriage are for the greater part on the woman's side.
Women have so little the power of choice that it is not
perhaps fair to say that they are less likely to choose
well than we are ; but I am persuaded that they are
more frequently deceived in the attachments they form,
.and their opinions concerning men are less accurate
than men's opinion of their sex. Now, if a lady were
to reproach me for having said this, I should only reply
that it was another mode of saying there are more
good wives in the world than there are good husbands,
which I verily believe. I know of nothing which a
good and sensible man is so certain to find, if he looks
for it, as a good wife.

Who marries for love takes a wife; who marries for
the sake of convenience takes a mistress; who marries
for consideration takes a lady. You are loved by your
wife, regarded by your mistress, tolerated by your lady.
You have a wife for yourself, a mistress for your house
and its friends, and a lady for the world. Your wife
will agree with you, your mistress will accommodate
you, and your lady will manage you. Your wife will
take care of your household, your mistress of your
house, your lady of appearance. If you are sick, your

436

YOUNG MEN AN.D MARRIAGE.

wife will nurse you, your mistress will visit you, and
your lady will inquire after your health. You take a
walk with your wife, a ride with your mistress, and
join partners with your lady. Your wife will share
your grief, your mistress your money, and your lady
your debts. If you are dead, your wife will shed tears,
your mistress lament, and your lady wear mourning.
A year after death marries again your wife, in six
months your mistress, and in six weeks or sooner, when
mourning is over, your lady.

Men and women, before marriage, are as figures and
cyphers. The woman is the cypher and counts for
nothing till she gets the figure of a husband beside her,
when she becomes of importance herself and adds ten-
fold to the sum of his. But this, it must be observed,
occurs only when she gets and remains on the right
side of him, for when she shifts from this position, he
returns to his lesser estate, and she to her original
insignificance.

Marriage offers the most effective opportunities for
spoiling the life of another. Nobody can debase, har-
rass and ruin a woman so fatally as her own husband,
and nobody can do a tithe so much to chill a man's
aspirations, to paralyze his energies, as his wife. A
man is never irretrievably ruined in his prospects until
he marries a bad woman. The Bible tells us that, as
the climbing a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so
is a wife full of words to a quiet man. A cheerful
wife is a rainbow in the sky when her husband's mind
is tossed on the storms of anxiety and care. A good
wife is the greatest earthly blessing. A man is what

YOUNG LADIES AND MATRIMONY.

437

his wife makes him. It is the mother who moulds the
character and destiny of the child. Make marriage a
matter of moral judgment. Marry in your own reli-
gion. Marry into a different blood and temperament
from your own. Marry into a family which you have
long known.

Husbands and wives of different religious persuasions
do not generally live happily. When the spiritual
influences are antagonistic, the conjugal union is not
complete, for it lacks the unity essential to the fulfill-
ment of serious obligations, and there is an entire
absence of that sound and reciprocated confidence —
that mutual faith, which, although their roots be in the
earth, have their branches in the sky of affection. The
subject is painful, and however we may wound the sus-
ceptibilities of apparently fond lovers — we say appar-
ently advisedly, for there can be no real love where
there is "no silver chord to bind it" — we unhesitatingly
express the opinion that marriages between persons
who do not thread in the same religious path are
wholly unadvisable — nay, wrong — for they tend to
invite a future teeming with shadows, clouds, and
darkness.

Many a young lady writes to say that she has had
an advantageous offer of marriage. The man who

438 YOUNG LADIES AND MATRIMONY.

made it is of exemplary character; he is well off in
this world's goods, is engaged in a profitable and
reputable business, and there is no particular reason
why she should not accept his proposal; but she does
not love him. In our judgment, that is reason enough.
We do not believe in marriage without love. Respect-
is all very well, and that one should have anyway; but
it does not take the place of affection. It is said that
in such matches love comes after marriage. We have
no doubt that it often does. But we think love should
precede as well as follow matrimony. It is always
liable to happen to one who has never loved. But sup>
pose, subsequent to marriage, it is awakened for the
first time in a wife, and the object happens to be other
than the husband — what then? This is a contingency
not pleasant to contemplate. No: if you do not love^
then do not marry. Singleness is blessedness compared
to marriage without affection. The connubial yoke
sits easy on the shoulders of love; but it is most galling-
without this one and only sufficient support.

We celebrate the wedding, and make merry over
the honeymoon. The poet paints the beauties and
blushes of the blooming bride; and the bark of mat-
rimony, with its freight of untested love, is launched
on the uncertain ocean of experiment, amid kind
wishes and rejoicings. But on that precarious sea
are many storms, and even the calm has its perils;
and only when the bark has weathered these, and
landed its cargo in the haven of domestic peace, can
we pronounce the voyage prosperous, and congratulate
the adventurer on his merited and enviable reward.

YOUNG LADIES AND MATR1M0N Y 4 3 $

The best women have an instinetive wish to marry a
man superior to themselves in some way or other; for
their honor is in their husbands, and their status in
society is determined by his. A woman who, for a.
passing fancy, marries a man in any way her inferior,,
wrongs herself, her family, and her whole life; for the
"grossness of his nature " will most probably drag her
to his level. Now and then a woman of great force
of character may lift her husband upward, but she-
accepts such a labor at the peril of her own higher life
Should she find it equally impossible to lift him to her
level or to sink to his, what remains ? Life-long regrets<
bitter shame and self-reproach, or a forcible setting of
herself free. ' But the latter, like all severe remedies^
carries desperation, instead of hope, with it. Never
can she quite regain her maiden place; an aura of a.
doubtful kind fetters and influences her in every effort
or relation of her future life. Or a young woman is
smitten with a pair of whiskers. Curled hair never
before had such charms. She sets her cap for them;;
they take. The delighted whiskers make an offer,,
proffering themselves both in exchange for one heart..
My dear miss is overcome with magnanimity, closes
the bargain, carries home the prize, shows it to pa and
ma, calls herself engaged to it, thinks there never was
such a pair of whiskers before, and in a few weeks they
are married. Married ! Yes, the world calls it so, and.
so we will. What is the result? A short honeymoon,
and then the discovery that they are as unlike as chalk
and cheese, and not to be made one, though all the
priests in Christendom pronounced them so.

440

YOUNG LADIES AND UAT11IMOXY.

Young ladies are not to rely upon common report,
aor the opinion of friends, nor fashionable acquaintances,
but upon personal knowledge of the individual's life
and character. How can another know what you
want in a companion ? You alone know your own
heart. If you do not know it you are not fit to be
married. No one else can tell what tills you with
pleasing and grateful emotions. You only know when
the spring of true affection is touched by the hand of a
a congenial spirit. It is for you to know who asks
your hand, who has your heart, who links his life with
yours. If you know the man who can make true
answer to your souPs true love, whose soul is all
kindred with yours, whose life answers to your ideal
of manly demeanor, you know who would make you a
good husband. But if you only fancy that he is right,
or guess, or believe, or hope, from a little social inter-
change of words and looks, you have but a poor
foundation on which to build hopes of future happiness.
Do not, as you value life and its comforts, marry a
man who is naturally cruel. If he will wantonly tor-
ture a poor dumb dog, a cat, or even a snake, fly from
him as you would from the cholera. We would sooner
see our daughter dying of cholera, than married to a
cruel hearted man. If his nature delights in torture,
he will not spare his wife, or his helpless children.
When we see a man practicing cruelty on any poor,
helpless creature, or beating a fractious horse unmerci-
fully, we write over against his name, '•devil,'" and
shun him accordingly.

Do not marry a fop. There is in such a character

YOUNG LADIES AND MATRIMONY. 441

nothing of true dignity ; nothing that commands respect,
or ensures even a decent standing in the community.
There is a mark upon him, an effected elegance of
manner, a studied particularity of dress, and usually a
singular inanity of mind, by which he is known in
every circle in which he moves. His very attitude and
gait tell the stranger who he is, though he only passes
him silently in the street. To unite your destiny with
such a man, we hardly need say, would be to impress
the seal of disgrace upon your character, and the seal
of wretchedness upon your doom.

Look with disdain on what are called, significantly,
our "fast young men;" those who frequent the saloon
and bar-room, to drench themselves in " fire-water;"
who, filled with conceit, talk large, and use big-sound-
ing oaths; whose highest ambition is to drive a fast
horse, to swear roundly, and wear dashy garments;
who affect to look with contempt on their elders and
equals, as they toil in some honest occupation, and
regard labor as a badge of disgrace.

A habit of industry once formed is not likely to be
ever lost. Place the individual in whatever circum-
stances you will, and he will not be satisfied unless he
can be active. Moreover, it will impart to his charac-
ter an energy and efficiency, and we may add, dignity,
which can hardly fail to render him an object of
respect. We should regard your prospects for life as
far better if you should marry a man of very limited
property, or even no property at all, with an honest
vocation and a habit of industry, than if we were to
see you united to one of extensive wealth, who had

442

YOUNG LADIES AND MATRIMONY.

never been taught to exercise his own powers, and had
sunk into the sensual gratification of himself.

Perhaps no foil)7 holds so strong a place in a woman's
mind that she can reclaim the one she loves — if he is
a little fast after marriage, he will settle down into a
just and sensible husband. History, too, often repeats
the failure of such beliefs; it is delusive, a snare, and
the young woman, after the marriage vows have been
recorded, awakes to find the will of her husband
stronger than her own, too selfish for an}7 control, and
her life begins its long agony of misery. We say to
young maidens, be warned in time; can \7ou reclaim
those who have not the power to reclaim themselves?
Can you throw away your pure life and womanly sym-
pathies upon wretches, whose moral principles cannot
stand the slightest examination, and whose proffered
love is but a temporary symptom of their changing
heartlessness ? Beware, beware ! the deepest rascal
has the finest clothes and the smoothest tongue. Yet
in spite of all the wretchedness of drunkards' wives,
young women are continually willing to marry men
who are in the habit of indulging in the social glass!
Ladies often refuse the marriage offers of young men
because they are too poor, or of too humble a family,
or too plain in person or manners. But only now and
then one has good sense enough to refuse to unite her-
self with a man who will not pledge himself to total
abstinence. A rich and fashionable young man has
commonly no trouble to get a wife, even though he is
hardly sober long enough to pronounce the marriage
vow. But a teetotaler in coarse raiment might be

YOUNG LADIES AND MATRIMONY. 443

snubbed as a vulgar fellow who has never seen society.
Ladies, before you begin to scold at us for this impious
thing, just look around and see if this is not true. A
young woman that marries a man who is addicted to*
drinking liquors is attaching to herself but a dead
weight that will drag her down with himself below the
level of the brute. Young ladies, as life is precious to>
you, and since you value it highly, take no such chances..
Rather than marry a man whom you know to drink,,
only now and then, for his friends' sake, wait a while
longer; there are many young men of noble character
who are on the lookout for a good young lady, and.
your chances are not to be despaired of. To think of
redeeming a young man from intemperance is simply
folly. To him your efforts to keep him from the cup
would be like darning a river with a feather, or like
stopping a hurricane with a tin whistle.

During the period that intervenes between forming
an engagement and consummating the connection, let
your deportment toward the individual to whom you.
have given your affections be marked by modesty and
dignity, respect and kindness. Never, on the one hand,,
give him the least reason to question the sincerity of
your regard, nor on the other, suffer your intercourse
with him to be marked by an undignified familiarity
Do all that you can to render him happy, and while you
will naturally grow in each other's confidence and affec-
tion, you may reasonably hope that you will be helpers
of each other's joy, in the most endearing of all human,
relations.

444

LOVE.

0ff,

" Oh happy state ! when souls each other draw,
When love is liberty, and nature law :
All then is full, possessing and possess'd,
No craving void left aching in the breast :
Even thought meets thought, ere from the lips it part,
And each warm wish springs mutual from the heart."

Love is such a giant power that it seems to gather
strength irom obstructions, and at every difficulty rises
to higher might. It is all dominant — all conquering;
a grand leveler which can bring down to its own uni-
versal line of eqalization the proudest heights, and
remove the most stubborn impediments: "Like death,
it levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook beside
the scepter."" There is no hope of resisting it, for it
outwatches the most vigilant — submerges everything,
acquiring strength as it proceeds; ever growing, nay,
growing out of itself. Love is the light, the majest}'
of life; that principle to which, after all our struggling,
and writhing, and twisting, all things must be resolved.
Take it away, and what becomes of the world!. It is
a barren wilderness! A world of monuments, each
standing upright and crumbling; an army of gray
stones, without a chaplet, without a leaf to take off,
with its glimpse of green, their flat insipidity and offen-
sive uniformity upon a shrubless plain. Things base
and foul, creeping and obscure, withered, bloodless,
and brainless, could alone spring from such a marble
hearted soil.

Love's darts are silver ; when they turn to fire in

LOVE.

445

the noble heart, they impart a portion of that heavenly
flame which is their element. Love is of such a refin-
ing, elevating character, that it expels all that is mean
and base; bids us think great thoughts, do great deeds,
and changes our common clay into fine gold. It illumi-
nates our path, dark and mysterious as it may be, with
torchlights lit from the one great light. Oh! poor,
weak, and inexpressive are words when sought to
strew, as with stars, the path and track of the expres-
sion of love's greatness and power! Dull, pitiful, and
cold; a cheating, horny gleam, as stones strung by the
side of precious gems, and the far-flashing of the spark-
ling ruby with his heart of fire! The blue eyes of
turquoises, or the liquid light of the sapphire, should
alone be tasked to spell along, and character our
thoughts of love.

The loves that make memory happy and home
beautiful, are those which form the sunlight of our
earliest consciousness, beaming gratefully along the
path of maturity, and their radiance lingering till the
shadow of death darkens them all together.

But there is another love — that which blends young
hearts in blissful unity, and, for the time, so ignores
past ties and affections, as to make willing separation
of the son from his father's house, and the daughter
from all the sweet endearments of her childhood's
home, to go out together, and rear for themselves
an altar, around which shall cluster all the cares and
delights, the anxieties and sympathies, of the family
relationship; this love, if pure, unselfish, and discreet,
constitutes the chief usefulness and happiness of human

446

LOVE.

life. Without it, there would be no organized house-
holds, and, consequently, none of that earnest endeavor
for competence and respectability, which is the main-
spring to human effort; none of those sweet, softening,
restraining and elevating influences of domestic life,
which can alone fill the earth with the glory of the
Lord and make glad the city of Zion; This love is
indeed heaven upon earth; but above would not be
heaven without it; where there is not love, there is
fear; but, "love casteth out fear." And yet we nat-
urally do offend what we most love.

Love is the sun of life; most beautiful in morning
and evening, but warmest and steadiest at noon. It is
the sun of the soul. Life without love is worse than
death; a world without a sun. The love which does
not lead to labor will soon die out, and the thankfulness
which does not embody itself in sacrifices is already
changing to gratitude. Love is not ripened in one
day, nor in many, nor even in a human lifetime. It
is the oneness of soul with soul in appreciation and
perfect trust. To be blessed it must rest in that faith
in the Divine which underlies every other emotion.
To be true, it must be eternal as God himself. Zeno
being told that it was humiliating to a philosopher to
be in love, remarked: "If that be true, the fair sex are
much to be pitied, for they would receive the attention
only of fools." Some love a girl for beauty, some for
virtue, and others for understanding. Goethe says:
"We love a girl for very different things than under-
standing. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her
mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults,

LOVE,

447

caprices, and God knows what other inexpressible
charms; but we do not love her understanding. Her
mind we esteem (if it is brilliant), and it may greatly
elevate her in our opinion; nay, more, it may enchain
us when we already love. But her understanding is
not that which awakens and inflames our passions."

Love is blind, and lovers cannot see

The pretty follies that themselves commit.

Remember that love is dependent upon forms; cour-
tesy of etiquette guards and protects courtesy of heart.
How many hearts have been lost irrecoverably, and
how many averted eyes and cold looks have been
gained from what seemed, perhaps, but a trifling negli-
gence of forms. Men and women should not be judged
by the same rules. There are many radical differences
in their affectional natures. Man is the creature of
interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into
the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the
embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the
intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune,
for space in the world's thoughts, and dominion over
his fellow-men. But a woman's whole life is a history
of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there
her ambition strives for empire; it is there her ambi-
tion seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her
sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul
in the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked her case
is hopeless, for it is bankruptcy of the heart.

Man's love is of man's life a thing, a part ;
'Tis woman's whole existence.

448

LOVE.

Woman lotes more than man because she sacrifices
more. For every woman it is with the food of the
heart as with that of the body; it is possible to exist
on a very small quantity, but that small quantity is an
absolute necessit}7. Woman loves or abhors ; man
admires or despises. Woman without love is a fruit
without flavor. In love, the virtuous woman says no;
the passionate says yes; the capricious says yes and
no; the coquette neither yes nor no. A coquette is a
rose from whom every lover plucks a leaf; the thorn
remains for the future husband. She may be com-
pared to tinder which catches sparks, but does not
always succeed in lighting a match. Love, while it
frequently corrupts pure hearts, often purifies corrupt
hearts. How well he knew the human heart who said,
"we wish to constitute all the happiness, or if that
cannot be, the misery of the one we love."

Woman's love is stronger than death ; it rises
superior to adversity, and towers in sublime beauty
above the niggardly selfishness of the world. Mis-
fortune cannot suppress it; enmity cannot alienate it;
temptation cannot enslave it. It is the guardian angel
of the nursery and the sick bed ; it gives an affectionate
concord to the partnership of life and interest, circum-
stances cannot modify it; it ever remains the same to-
sweeten existence, to purify the cup of life on the
rugged pathway to the grave, and melt to moral plia-
bilit}7 the brittle nature of man. It is the ministering
spirit of home, hovering in soothing caresses over the
cradle, and the death-bed of the household, and filling
up the urn of all its sacred memories.

lo ve. 449

The affection that links together man and wife is a
far holier and more enduring passion than the enthusiasm
of young love. It may want its gorgeousness — it may
want its imaginative character, but it is far richer, and
holier, and more trusting in its attributes. Talk not to
us of the absence of love in wedlock. No! it burns
with a steady and brilliant flame, shedding a benign
influence upon existence, a million times more precious
and delightful than the cold dreams of philosophy.
Domestic love ! Who can measure its height or its
depth? Who can estimate its preserving and purifying
power ? It sends an ever swelling stream of life through
a household, it binds hearts into one " bundle of life;"
it shields them from temptation, it takes the sting from
disappointments and sorrow, it breathes music into the
voice, into the footsteps, it gives worth and beauty to
the commonest office, it surrounds home with an atmos-
phere of moral health, it gives power to effort and
wings to progress, it is omnipotent. Love, amid the
other graces in this world, is like a cathedral tower,
which begins on the earth, and, at first, is surrounded
by the other parts of the structure; but, at length,
rising above buttressed wall, and arch, and parapet, and
pinnacle, it shoots spire-like many a foot right into the
air, so high that the huge cross on its summit glows
like a spark in the morning light and shines like a star
in the evening sky, when the rest of the pile is enveloped
in darkness.

He who loves a lady's complexion, form and features,
loves not her true self, but her soul's old clothes. The
love that has nothing but beauty to sustain it, soon
29

450

LOVE.

withers and dies. The love that is fed with presents
always requires feeding. Love, and love only, is the
loan for love. Love is of the nature of a burning glass,
which, kept still in one place, fireth; changed often, it
doth nothing. The purest joy we can experience in
one we love, is to see that person a source of happiness
to others. When you are with the person loved, you
have no sense of being bored. This humble and trivial
circumstance is the great test — the only sure and
abiding test of love. With the persons you do not
love you are never supremely at your ease. You have
some of the sensation of walking upon stilts. In con-
versation with them, however much you admire them
and are interested in them, the horrid idea will cross
your mind of "What shall I say next?" One has well
said, "In true love the burden of conversation is borne
by both the lovers, and the one of them who, with
knightly intent, would bear it alone, would only thus
cheat the other of a part of his best fortune." When
two souls come together, each seeking to magnify the
other, each in a subordinate sense worshiping the other,
each helps the other; the two" flying together so that
each wing-beat of the one helps each wing-beat of the
other — when two souls come together thus, they are
rovers. They who unitedly move themselves away
from grossness and from earth, toward the throne
crystaline and the pavement golden, are, indeed, true
lovers.

MATRIMONY.

451

It is pleasant to contemplate the associations clus-
tering around the wedding morn. It is the happiest
hour of human life, and breaks upon the young heart
like a gentle spring upon the flowers of earth. It is
the hour of bounding, joyous expectancy, when the
ardent spirit, arming itself with bold hope, looks with
undaunted mien upon the dark and terrible future. It
is the hour when thought borrows the livery of good-
ness, and humanity looking from its tenement, across
the broad common of life, shakes off its heavy load of
sordidness, and gladly swings to its shoulders the light
burden of love and kindness. It is the heart's hour,
full of blissful contemplation, rich promises, and the
■soul's happy revels. We cordially echo the sentiment,
u Happy morn, garmented with the human virtues, it
shows life to the eye, lovely, as if

u Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars."

Marriage has in it less of beauty, but more of safety
than the single life; it hath no more ease, but less dan-
ger; it is more merry and more sad; it is fuller of
sorrows and fuller of joys; it lies under more burdens,
but it is supported by all the strengths of love and
charity, and those burdens are delightful. Marriage
is the mother of the world, and preserves kingdoms,
and fills cities and churches, and heaven itself. Celib-
acy, like the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in
perpetual sweetness, but sits alone, and is confined and

452

MATRIMONY.

dies in singularity; but marriage, like the useful beer
builds a house, and gathers honey from every flower,,
and labors, and unites into societies and republics, and,
sends out colonies, and feeds the world with delicacies,,
and obeys its king, and keeps order, and exercises
many virtues, and promotes the interests of mankind,
and is that state of good to which God hath designed
the present constitution of the world.

"Marriage is a lottery," the saying goes, and there
are plenty who believe it, and who act accordingly,
and for such it is well if they do no worse than draw
a blank, if they do not draw a life-long misery and
pain. But marriage is not necessarily a lottery, either
in the initial choice or in the months and years after
the marriage day. One can shut his eyes and draw,
or one can open them and choose. One can choose
with the outward eye alone, or with the eye of intellect
and conscience. Says Jeremy Taylor, speaking of
marriages where physical beauty is the only bond:
"It is an ill band of affections to tie two hearts
together with a little thread of red and white." But
let us choose ever so wisely, ever so deeply, and not
we ourselves nor the minister can marry us completely
on the wedding da}'. "A happy wedlock is a long
falling in love." Marriage is very gradual, a fraction
of us at a time. And the real ministers that marry
people are the slow years, the joys and sorrows which
they bring, our children on earth and the angels they
are transfigured into in heaven, the toils and burdens
borne in company. These are the ministers that really
marry us, and compared with these, the ministers who

MATRIMONY.

453

go through a form of words some day, when heaven
and earth seem to draw near and kiss each other, are
of small account. And the real marriage service isn't
anything printed or said; it is the true heart service
which each yields to the other, year in and year out,
when the bridal wreath has long since faded, and even
the marriage ring is getting sadly worn. Let this
service be performed, and even if the marriage was
a lottery to begin with, this would go far to redeem it
and make it a marriage of coequal hearts and minds.

When the honeymoon passes away, setting behind
dull mountains, or dipping silently into the stormy sea
of life, the trying hour of married life has come.
Between the parties there are no more illusions. The
feverish desire for possession has gone, and all excite-
ment receded. Then begins, or should, the business
■of adaptation. If they find that they do not love one
another as they thought they did, they should double
their assiduous attentions to one another, and be jealous
of everything which tends in the slightest way to sepa-
rate them. Life is too precious to be thrown away in
secret regrets or open differences. And let me say to
every one to whom the romance of life has fled, and
who are discontented in the slightest degree with theii
conditions and relations, begin this reconciliation at
once. Renew the attentions of earlier days. Draw
your hearts closer together. Talk the thing all over.
Acknowledge your faults to one another, and determine
that henceforth you will be all in all to each other; and
my word for it, you shall find in your relation the
sweetest joy earth has for you. There is no other way

454

MATRIMONY.

for you to do. If 3^011 are happy at home, you must
be happ}' abroad; the man or woman who has settled
down upon the conviction that he or she is attached for
life to an uncongenial yoke-fellow, and that there is no*
way of escape, has lost life; there is no effort too costly
to make which can restore to its setting upon the
bosom the missing pearl.

It is a great thing for two frail natures to live as one
for life long. Two harps are not easity kept always in
tune, and what shall we expect of two harps each of a
thousand strings? What human will or wisdom can-
not do, God can do, and his Providence is uniting ever
more intimately, those who devoutly try to do the work
of life and enjoy its goods together. For them there
is in store a respect and affection; a peace and power
all unknown in the hey-day of }7oung romance. Expe*
rience intertwines their remembrances and hopes in
stronger cords, and as they stand at the loom of time,
one with the strong warp, the other with the finer
woof, the hand of Providence weaves for them a tissue
of unfading beauty and imperishable worth.

The marriage institution is the bond of social order>
and, if treated with due respect, care, and discretion^
greatly enhances individual happiness, and consequently
general good. The Spartan law punished those who
did not marry; those who married too late; and those
who married improperly. A large portion of the evils
that have defaced the original organization of the
patriarchal age, have resulted from the increase of
celibacy, often caused by the imaginary refinements of
the upper ten thousand. There are other causes that

MATRIMONY.

455

have stripped the marriage institution of its ancient
simplicity, and rendered its pure stream turbid in
places. Among the Patriarchs, before there were any
rakes, parents never interfered, the young pair made
the match, and the girl always married the man of her
choice, an indispensable pre-requisite to a happy union.
How to secure happiness to married life is the question.
Some one would say, "You might as well ask to find
the philosopher's stone, or the elixir of perpetual youth ,
or the Eutopia of perfect society!" The prime diffi-
culty in the case is the entire thoughtlessness, the want
of consideration, common sense and practical wisdom.
Not only young persons contemplating marriage —
which includes all between the age of eighteen and
thirty-five — but also many married people have a
vague notion that happiness comes of itself. They
wait for certain dreams of Elysium to be fulfilled by
beatific realities. Happiness does not come of its own
accord nor by accident. It is not a gift, but an attain-
ment. Circumstances may favor, but cannot create it.
But advice to those who stand, or mean to stand by
the hymeneal altar, falls upon dull ears, and every
coupled pair flatter themselves that their experience
will be better and more excellent than that of any who
have gone before them. They look with amazement
at the tameness, and coldness, and diversities, and:
estrangements, and complainings, and dissatisfactions,
which spoil the comfort of so many homes, as at things
which cannot, by any possibility fall to their happier
lot. But like causes produce like effects, and to avoid
the misfortunes of others, we must avoid their mistakes.

45(3

MATRIMONY.

Love on both sides, and all things equal in outward
circumstances, are not all the requisites of domestic
felicity. Human nature is frail and multiform in its
passions. The honeymoon gets a dash of vinegar now
and then, when least expected. Young people seldom
court in their every-day clothes, but they must put
them on after marriage. As in other bargains, but few
expose defects. They are apt to marry faultless — love
is blind — but faults are there and will come out. The
fastidious attentions of wooing are like spring flowers,
they make pretty nosegays, but poor greens. Miss
Darling becomes the plain house wife, and Mr. Allat-
tention the informal husband, not from a want of
esteem, but from the constitution and nature of man.
If all these changes, and more than would answer in
wooing time, are anticipated, as they are by some
analyzing minds, their happiness will not be embittered
by them when they come. Bear and forbear, must be
the motto put in practice.

We exhort you, who are a husband, to love your
wife, even as you love yourself. Give honor to her as
the more delicate vessel; respect the delicacy of her
frame and the delicacy of her mind. Continue through
life the same attention, the same manly tenderness which
in youth gained her affections. Reflect that, though
her bodily charms are decayed as she is advanced in
age, yet that her mental charms are increased, and
that, though novelty is worn off, yet that habit and a
thousand acts of kindness have strengthened your
mutual friendship. Devote yourself to her, and, after

MATRIMONY. 457

the hours of business, let the pleasures which you most
highly prize be found in her society.

We exhort }rou, who are a wife, to be gentle and
condescending to your husband. Let the influence
which you possess over him arise from the mildness of
your manners and the discretion of your conduct.
Whilst vou are careful to adorn your person with neat
and clean apparel — for no woman can long preserve
affection if she is negligent in this point — be still more
attentive in ornamenting your mind with meekness and
peace, with cheerfulness and good humor. Lighten the
cares and chase away the vexations to which men, in
their commerce with the world, are unavoidably
exposed, b}' rendering his house pleasant to your
husband. Keep at home, let your employments be
domestic and your pleasures domestic.

To both husband and wife we say, "Preserve a strict
guard over your tongues, that you never utter anything
which is rude, contemptuous, or severe; and over }7our
tempers, that you never appear sullen and morose.
Endeavor to be perfect yourselves, but expect not too
much from each other. If any offense arises, forgive
it; and think not that a human being can be exempt
from faults."

In conclusion we would say, that marriage is one
of God's first blessings. Although it involves many
weighty responsibilities, it is a gem in the crown of life.
It is a school and exercise of virtue; and though mar-
riage hath cares, yet the single life hath desires which
are more troublesome and more dangerous, and often
end in sin, while the cares are but instances of duty and

458

MATRIMONY.

exercises of piety ; and, therefore, if single life hath
more privacy of devotion, yet marriage hath more
necessities and more variety of it, and is an exercise of
more graces. Here is the proper scene of piety and
patience, of the duty of parents and the charity of
relatives; here kindness is spread abroad, and love is
united and made firm as a center.

Man and wife are equally concerned to avoid all
offenses of each other in the beginning of their con-
versation : every little thing can blast an infant blossom,,
and the breath of the south can shake the little rings
of the vine, when first they begin to curl like the locks
of a new-weaned boy; but when, by age and consolida-
tion, they stiffen into the hardness of a stem, and have?
by the warm embraces of the sun and the kisses of
heaven, brought forth their clusters, they can endure
the storms of the north and the loud noises of a tem-
pest, and yet never be broken: so are the early unions
of an unfixed marriage; watchful and observant, jealous
and busy, inquisitive and careful, and apt to take alarm
at every unkind word. After the hearts of the man
and the wife are endeared and hardened by a mutual
confidence and experience, longer than artifice and
pretence can last, there are a great many remembrances,,
and some things present that dash all little unkindnesses
ii» pieces.

THE CON JUG AI; RELATION.

459

Have you taken upon yourselves the conjugal
relation ? Your high and solemn duty is to make
each oilier as happy as it is in your power. The
husband should have, as his great object and rule
of conduct, the happiness of the wife. Of that hap-
piness, the confidence in his affection is the chief
element ; and the proofs of this affection on his part,
therefore, constitute his chief duty — an affection that
is not lavish of caresses only, as if these were the only
demonstrations of love, but of that respect which dis-
tinguishes love, as a principle, from that brief passion
which assumes, and only assumes, the name — a respect
which consults the judgment, as well as the wishes, of
the object beloved — which considers her who is worthy
of being taken to the heart as worthy of being admit-
ted to all the counsels of the heart. He must often
forget her, or be useless to the world; she is most
useful to the world by remembering him. From the
tumultuous scenes which agitate many of his hours, he
returns to the calm scene, where peace awaits him, and
happiness is sure to await him; because she is there
waiting, whose smile is peace , and whose very presence
is more than happiness to his heart.

In your joy at the consummation of your wishes, do
not forget that your happiness both here and hereafter
depends — O how much! — upon each other's influence.
An unkind word or look, or an unintentional neglect,
sometimes leads to thoughts which ripen into the ruin

460

THE CONJUGAL RELATION.

of body and soul. A spirit of forbearance, patience,
and kindness, and a determination to keep the chain
of love bright, are likely to develop corresponding
qualities, and to make the rough places of life smooth
and pleasant. Have you ever reflected seriousl}* that
it is in the power of either of you to make the other
utterly miserable? And when the storms and trials
of life come, for come they will, how much either of
you can do to calm, to elevate, to purify, the troubled
spirit of the other, and substitute sunshine for the
storm ?

We cannot look upon marriage in the light in which
many seem to regard it — merely as a convenient ar-
rangement in society. To persons of benevolence,
intelligence, and refinement, it must be something
more — the source of the greatest possible happiness
or of the most abject misery — no half-way felicit}7.
You have not had the folly to discard common sense.
You have endeavored to study charitably and carefully
the peculiarities of each other's habits, dispositions, and
principles, and to anticipate somewhat the inconven-
iences to which they may lead. And as you are deter-
mined to outdo each other in making personal sacrifices,
and to live by the spirit of the Savior, you have laid a
foundation for happiness, which it is not likely7 will be
shaken by the joys or sorrows, the prosperity or adver-
sity, the riches or poverty, or by the frowns or flattery,
of the world. If there is a place on earth to which
vice has no entrance — where the gloomy passions have
no empire — where pleasure and innocence live con-
stantly together — where cares and labors are delight-

THE CONJUGAL RELATION.

461

fill — where every pain is forgotten in reciproeal ten-
derness— where there is an equal enjoyment of the
past, the present, and the future — it is the house of a
wedded pair, but of a pair who, in wedlock, are lovers
still.

The married life, though entered never so well, and
with all proper preparation, must be lived well or it
will not be useful or happy. Married life will not go
itself, or if it does it will not keep the track. It will
turn off at every switch and fly off at every turn or
impediment. It needs a couple of good conductors who
understand the engineering of life. Good watch must
be kept for breakers ahead. The fires must be kept
up by a constant addition of the fuel of affection. The
boilers must be kept full and the machinery in order,
and all hands at their posts, else there will be a smash-
ing up, or life will go hobbling or jolting along, wearing
and tearing, breaking and bruising, leaving some heads
and hearts to get well the best way they can. It
requires skill, prudence, and judgment to lead this life
well, and these must be tempered with forbearance,
charity, and integrity.

The }Toung are apt to hang too many garlands about
the married life. This is so as this life is generally
lived. But if it is wisely entered and truthfully lived,
it is more beautiful and happy than any have imagined.
It is the true life which God has designed for his
children, replete with joy, delightful, improving, and
satisfactory in the highest possible earthly degree. It
is the hallowxd home of virtue, peace, and bliss. It is
the ante-chamber of heaven, the visiting-place of angels,

462

THE CONJUGAL RELATION,

the communing ground of kindred spirits. Let all
young women who would reap such joys and be thus
blessed and happy, learn to live the true life and be
prepared to weave for their brows the true wife's
perennial crown of goodness.

The experience of an excellent lady may be of
benefit to some reader,, She had a very worthy hus-
band, whom she did not love as she should. The
trouble was she had not entirely surrendered herself to
him until after she had been very ill. She says: "I
have been very ill, almost dead. Such care and devo-
tion as I have had! What a rock my heart must have
been, not to be broken before. Day and night my
husband has watched me himself, sleepless and tireless;
nobody else could do so much. Now I know what love
means. My husband shall never say again, 'Love me
more.' He shall have all there is to give, and I think
my heart is larger than it was a year ago. What a
thrill of joy it gives me when I catch his eye, or hear
his voice or step. My heart runs to meet him and my
eyes overflow with tears of happiness. Flow mean and
contemptible it seems to me to desire the attention of
other men, or to wish to go anywhere he cannot
accompany me. I despise myself for ever thinking
such pleasures desirable. 1 delight to say, 'My hus-
band, my good, noble, generous, forgiving husband,
keep me close to you. That is all the happiness I
ask.' I know now that all the trouble was the result
of not having a full, complete giving up of myself,
when I promised to be a wife — a consecration of true
love."

TIIV CONJUGAL RELATION.

463

The warmest-hearted and most unselfish women soon
learn to aceept quiet trust and the loyalty of a loving
life as the calmest and happiest condition of marriage;
and the men who are sensible enough to rely on the
good sense of such wives sail round the gushing adorers
both for true affection and comfortable tranquility.

Just let a young wife remember that her husband
necessarily is under a certain amount of bondage all
day; that his interests compel him to look pleasant
under all circumstances, to offend none, to say no hasty
word, and she will see that when he reaches his own
fireside he wants, most of all, to have this strain
removed, to be at ease; but this he cannot be if he is
continually afraid of wounding his wife's sensibilities
by forgetting some outward and visible token of his
affection for her. Besides, she pays him but a poor
compliment in refusing to believe what he does not
continually assert, and by fretting for what is unreason-
able to desire she deeply wrongs herself, for

" A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty."

Make a home; beautify and adorn it; cultivate all
heavenly charms within it; sing sweet songs of love in
it ; bear your portion of toil, and pain, and sorrow in it ;
con daily lessons of strength and patience there; shine
like a star on the face of the darkest night over it, and
tenderly rear the children it shall give you in it. High
on a pinnacle, above all earthly grandeur, all gaudy
glitter, all fancied ambitions, -set the home interests.
Feed the mind in it; feed the soul in it; strengthen the

464

THE CONJUGAL RELATION.

love, and charity, and truth, and all holy and good
things within :t !

When young persons marry, even with the fairest
prospects they should never forget that infirmity is
inseparably bound up with their very nature, and that,
in bearing one another's burdens, they fulfill one of the
highest duties of the union. Love in marriage cannot
live nor subsist unless it be mutual; and where love
cannot be, there can be left of wedlock nothing but the
empty husk of an outside matrimony, as undelightful
and unpleasing to God as any other kind of hypocrisy.

We have all seen the trees die in summer time.
But the tree with its whispering leaves and swinging
limbs, its greenness, its umbrage, where the shadows
he hidden all the day, does not die. First a dimness-
creeps over its brightness; next a leaf sickens here and
there, and pales; then a whole bough feels the palsy-
ing touch of coming death, and finally the feeble signs
of sickly life, visible here and there, all disappear, and
the dead trunk holds out its stripped, stark limbs, a
melancholy ruin. Just so does wedded love sometimes
die Wedded love, girdled by the blessings of friends,
hallowed by the sanction of God, rosy with present
joys, and radiant with future hopes, it dies not all at
once. A hasty word casts a shadow upon it, and the
shadow darkens with the sharp reply. A little
thoughtlessness misconstrued, a little unintentional neg-
lect deemed real, a little word misinterpreted, through
such small avenues the . devil of discord gains admit-
tance to the heart, and then welcomes all his infernal
progeny. The presence of something malicious is felt,

HUSBAND AXD WIFE.

465

but not acknowledged ; love becomes reticent, con-
fidence is chilled, and noislessly but surely the work of
separation goes on, until the two are left as isolated as
the pyramids — nothing left of the union but the legal
form — the dead trunk of the tree, whose branches
once tossed in the bright sunlight, and whose sheltering
leaves trembled with the music of singing birds now
affords no shade for the traveler.

There are two classes of disappointed lovers — those
who are disappointed before marriage, and the more
unhappy ones who are disappointed after it. To be
deprived of a person we love is a happiness in com-
parison of living with one we hate.

%m%m$k ami H9Ufe*

Some writer asserts that, " a French woman will lo e
her husband if he is either witty or chivalrous; a Ger-
man woman, if he is constant and faithful; a Dutch
woman, if he does not disturb her ease and comfort
too much; a Spanish woman, if he wreaks vengeance
on those who incur his displeasure; an Italian woman,
if he is dreamy and poetical; a Danish woman, if he
thinks that her native country is the brightest and hap-
piest on earth; a Russian woman, if he despises all
westerners as miserable barbarians ; an English woman,
if he succeeds in ingratiating himself with the court
30

466

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

and the aristocracy; an American woman, if — he has
plenty of money."

In the true wife the husband finds not affection only,
but companionship — a companionship with which no
other can compare. The family relation gives retire-
ment with solitude, and society without the rough
intrusion of the world. It plants in the husband's
dwelling a friend who can bear his silence without
weariness; who can listen to the details of his interests
with sympathy; who can appreciate his repetition of
events only important as they are embalmed in the
heart. Common friends are linked to us by a slender
thread. We must retain them by ministering in some
way to their interest or their enjoyment. What a
luxury it is for a man to feel that in his home there is
a true and affectionate being, in whose presence he
may throw off restraint without danger to his dignity;
he may confide without fear of treachery; and be sick
or unfortunate without being abandoned. If, in the
outer world, he grows weary of human selfishness, his
he xrt can safely trust in one whose indulgences over-
loc c his defects.

The treasure of a wife's affection, like the grace of
God, is given, not bought. Gold is power. It can
sweep down forests, raise cities, build roads and deck
houses. It can collect troops of flatterers, and inspire
awe and fear. But alas ! wealth can never purchase
love. Bonaparte essayed the subjugation of Europe,
under the influence of a genius almost inspired ; an
ambition insatiable, and backed by millions of armed
.men. He almost succeeded in swaying his sceptre

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

407

from the Straits of Dover to the Mediterranean; from
the Bay of Biscay to the sea of AzofF. On many a
bloody field his banner floated triumphantly. But the
greatest conquest was the unbought heart of Josephine ;
his sweetest and most priceless treasure her outraged
but unchanged love. If any man has failed to estimate
the affection of a true-hearted wife, he will be likely to
mark the value in his loss when the heart that loved
him is stilled by death.

Is man the child of sorrow, and do afflictions and
distresses pour their bitterness into his cup? How are
his trials alleviated, his sighs suppressed, his corroding
thoughts dissipated, his anxieties and pains relieved,
his gloom and depression chased away by her cheerful-
ness and love. Is he overwhelmed by disappointment,
and mortified by reproaches? There is one who can
hide her eyes even from his faults, and who, like her
Father who is in heaven, can forgive and love "without
upbraiding." And when he is sickened by the subtle-
ties and deception of the world; when the acrimony of
men has made him acrimonious ; when he becomes
dissatisfied with himself, and all around him, her pleas
ant smile, her undissembled tenderness, her artless
simplicity, "restore him to himself, and spread serenity
and sweetness over his mind."

Nothing is more annoying than that display of affec-
tion which some husbands and wives shDW to each
other in society. That familiarity of touch, those half-
concealed caresses, those absurd names, that prodi-
gality of endearing epithets, that devoted attention
which they flaunt in the face of the public as a kind of

468

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

challenge to the world at large, to come and admire
their happiness, is always noticed and laughed at.
Yet to some women this parade of love is the very
essence of married happiness, and part of their dearest
privileges. They believe themselves admired and
envied, when they are ridiculed and scoffed at ; and
they think their husbands are models for other men to
copy, when they are taken as examples for all to avoid.
Men who have any real manliness, however, do not
give in to this kind of thing; though there are some as
effeminate and gushing as women themselves, who like
this sloppy effusiveness of love, and carry it on to quite
old age, fondling the ancient grandmother with gray
hairs as lavishly as they had fondled the youthful
bride, and seeing no want of harmony in calling a
withered old dame of sixty and upwards by the pet
names by which they had called her when she was a
slip of a girl cf eighteen. This public display of
familiar affection is never seen among men who pride
themselves on making good lovers, as certain men do*
those who have reduced the practice of love-making to
an art, a science, and know their lesson to a letter.
These men are delightful to women, who like nothing
so much as being made love to, as well after marriage
as before; but men who take matters quietly, and rely
on the good sense of their wives to take matters
quietly, too, sail round these scientific adorers for both
depth and manliness.

Books addressed to young married people abound
with advice to the wife to control her temper, and
never to utter wearisome complaints or vexatious

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

469

words when the husband comes home fretful or unreas-
onable from his out-of-door conflicts with the world.
Would not the advice be as excellent and appropriate,
if the husband were advised to conquer his fretfulness,
.and forbear his complaints, in consideration of his wife's
* ill-health, fatiguing cares, and the thousand dishearten-
ing influences of domestic routine? • In short, whatso-
ever can be named as loveliest, best, and most graceful
in woman, would likewise be good and graceful in man.

O husbands! think upon your duty. You who have
taken a wife from a happy home of kindred hearts and
kind companionship, have you given to her all of }7our
time which you could spare, have you endeavored to
make amends to her for the loss of these friends?
Have you joined with her in her endeavors to open
the minds of your children, and give them good moral
lessons ? Have you strengthened her mind with advice,
kindness, and good books? Have you spent your
•evenings with her in the cultivation of intellectual,
moral, or social excellence? Have you looked upon
her as an immortal being, as well as yourself?

There is a picture, bright and beautiful, but never-
theless true, where hearts are united for mutual happi-
ness and mutual improvement; where a kind voice
cheers the wife in her hour of trouble, and where the
shade of anxiety is chased from the husband's brow
as he enters his home; where sickness is soothed by
watchful love, and hope and faith burn brightly. For
•such there is a great reward, both here and hereafter,
in their own and their families' spiritual happiness and
growth, and in the blessed scenes of the world of spirits.

470

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

And, wives! do you also consult the tastes and dis-
positions of your husbands, and endeavor to give to
them high and noble thoughts, lofty aims, and temporal
comfort. Be ready to welcome them to their homes,,
gradually draw their thoughts while with you from
business, and lead them to the regions of the beautiful
in art and nature, and the true and the divine in senti-
ment. Foster a love of the elegant and refined, and
gradually will you see business, literature, and high
moral culture blending in "sweet accord."

Before marriage, a young man would feel some
delicacy about accepting an invitation to spend an
evening in company where his "ladye love" had not
been invited. After marriage, is he always as partic-
ular? During the days of courtship, his gallantry
' would demand that he should make himself agreeable
to her; after marriage, it often happens that he thinks
more of being agreeable to himself. Plow often it
happens, that a married man, after having been away
from home the livelong day, during which the wife has
toiled at her duties, goes at evening again to some
place of amusement, and leaves her to toil on alone,,
uncheered and unhappy! How often it happens that
her kindest offices pass unobserved, and unrewarded
even by a smile, and her best efforts are condemned
by the fault-finding husband! How often it happens,
even when the evening is spent at home, that it is
employed in silent reading, or some other way, that
does not recognize the wife's right to share in the
enjoyments even of the fireside!

Look, ye husbands, for a moment, and remember

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

All

what your wife was when you took her, not from
compulsion, but from your own choice; a choice based,
probably, on what you then considered her superiority
to all others. She was young — perhaps the idol of
her happy home; she was gay and blithe as the lark,
and the brothers and sisters at her father's fireside
cherished her as an object of endearment. Yet she
left all to join her destiny with yours, to make }/our
home happy, and to do all that woman's ingenuity
could devise to meet your wishes and to lighten the
burdens which might press upon you.

The good wife! How much of this world's happi-
ness and prosperity is contained in the compass of these
two short words ! Her influence is immense. The
power of a wife, for good or for evil, is altogether
irresistible. Home must be the seat of happiness, or it
must be forever unknown. A good wife is to a man
wisdom, and courage, and strength, and hope, and
endurance. A bad one is confusion, weakness, discom-
fiture, despair. No condition is hopeless when the wife
possesses firmness, decision, energy, economy. There
is no outward prosperity which can counteract indo-
lence, folly, and extravagance at home. No spirit can.
long resist bad domestic influences. Man is strong, but
his heart is not adamant. He delights in enterprise
and action, but to sustain him he needs a tranquil mind
and a whole heart. He expends his whole moral force
in the conflicts of the world. His feelings are daily
lacerated to the utmost point of endurance by perpetual
collision, irritation, and disappointment.

Let woman know, then, that she ministers at the

472

HUSBAND AMD WIFE.

very fountain of life and happiness. It is her hand
that lades out with overflowing cup its soul-refreshing
waters, or casts in the branch of bitterness which makes
them poison and death. Her ardent spirit breathes the
breath of life into all enterprise. Her patience and
constancy are mainly instrumental in carrying forward
to completion the best human designs. Her more
delicate moral sensibility is the unseen power which is
ever at work to purify and refine society. And the
nearest glimpse of heaven that mortals ever get on
earth is that domestic circle which her hands have
trained to intelligence, virtue, and love, which her
gentle influence pervades, and of which her radiant
presence is the center and the sun.

Watching those on the sidewalk on the way to labor,
we thought we could read a great deal of the home-
life of each in the passing glance we gave as they went
hurrying by. Here was one whose clothing was ragged
and neglected, and on his face a hard, dissatisfied
-expression. It was easy to see there was no hope in
his heart; that he went to his task as if it were a
penalty imposed for crime, and that no pleasant and
loving home cheered him at the evening and lifted from
his heart the clouds that darkened his life. It is a
terrible thing when the home of the poor lacks love —
the only agency which can lighten its burdens and
make it hopeful and happy.

Beside him walks another — no better, but much
cleanlier clad, and the broad patches of his blue over-
alls are cleanly put on and not fringed with ragged
edges. He has a home, you can see that at once, and,

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

473

humble as it may be, there is a woman who is his
confident as well as his wife, and, together, they plan
how to use their little means and increase their little
store of comforts. They have ambition, and ambition
to improve one's condition never fails to give force to
character and something of dignity and worth to life.

Last of all, though this consideration be not the least
of all, let it be remembered that the husband is bound
by the divine law to treat his wife as an immortal
being, and, therefore, to have regard to her moral and
spiritual welfare. Can any man have a just sense of
the truth that the partner of his heart, the sharer of
his fortunes, whose earthly destiny is so closely linked
with his own, is, like himself, an immortal spirit; that,
after the scenes of time shall all have vanished from
her view like a gorgeous dream, she must enter upon
those brighter ones that shall be forever expanding in
beatific splendor, or else, if unprepared for them, must
dwell in those gloomy realms which our Savior
describes as "the outer darkness71 of banishment from
God and happiness, and yet cherish no lively interest in
her education for the society of heaven? In that
remarkable hour that witnessed the formation of the
marriage union, the era of separation was anticipated
by the solemn vow which his lips then uttered, that he
would cherish the object of his choice as "the wife of
liis covenant" in wedded love "till death should part
them."

474

JOY.

Joy is a prize unbought, and is freest, purest in its
flow when it comes unsought. No getting into heaven
as a place will compass it. You must carry it with
you, else it is not there. You must have it in you as
the music of a well-ordered soul, the fire of a holy pur-
pose. An unchanging state of joy is not possible on
earth as it now is, because evil and error are here.
The soul must have its midnight hour as well as its
sunlight seasons of joy and gladness. Still the mercy
of the Lord is shown as much in the night as in the
day. It is only in the night that we can see the stars.
The noblest spirits, however, are those which turn to
heaven, not in the hour of sorrow, but in that of joy;
like the lark, they wait for the clouds to disperse, that
they may soar up into their native element.

He who selfishly hoards his joys, thinking thus to
increase them, is like a man who looks at his granary,
and says, "Not only will I protect my grain from mice
and birds, but neither the ground nor the mill shall
have it." And so, in the spring, he walks around his
little pit of corn, and exclaims, "How wasteful are my
neighbors, throwing away whole handfuls of grain!"
But autumn comes; and, while he has only his few
poor bushels, their fields are yellow with an abundant
harvest. "There is that scattereth and yet increaseth."

Worldly joy is like the songs which peasants sing,,
full of melodies and sweet airs. Christian joy has its
sweet airs too; but they are augmented to harmonies^

JOY.

475

so that he who has it goes to heaven, not to the voice
of a single flute, but to that of a whole band of instru-
ments, discoursing wondrous music. Those who joy
in wealth grow avaricious; those who joy in their
friends too often lose nobility of spirit; those who joy
in sensuousness lose dignity of character; those who
joy in literature ofttimes become pedantic; but those
who joy in liberty — i. e., that all should do as they
would be done by — possess the happiest of joys. It
is a solid joy no one can barter away. Exceedingly
few possess it.

He that to the best of his power has secured the
final stake, has a perennial fountain of joy within him.
He is satisfied from himself. They, his reverse, bor-
row all from without. Joy wholly from without is
false, precarious, and short. From without it may
be gathered; but, like gathered flowers, though fair
and sweet for a season, it must soon wither and become
offensive. Jo}7 from within is like smelling the rose on
the tree. It is more sweet and fair — it is lasting; and,
I must add, immortal. Happy are the moments when
sorrow forgets its cares, and misery its misfortunes;
when peace and gladness spring up upon the radiant
wings of hope, and the light of contentment dawns
once more upon the disconsolate, unfortunate, and
unhappy heart.

" The past unsighed for, and the future sure."

There is in this world continual interchange of
pleasing and greeting accidents, still keeping their
succession of times, and overtaking each other in

476

BEAUTY.

their several courses; no picture can be all drawn
of the brightest colors, nor a harmon}7 consorted only
of trebles; shadows are needful in expressing of pro-
portions, and the bass is a principal part in perfect
music; the condition here alloweth no unmeddled joy;
our whole life is temperate between sweet and sour,
and we must all look for a mixture of both: the wise
so wish: better that they still think of worse, accept-
ing the one if it come with liking, and bearing the
other without impatience, being so much masters of
each other's fortunes, that neither shall work them to
excess. The dwarf groweth not on the highest hill,
nor the tall man loseth not his height in the lowest
valley; and as a base mind, though most at ease, will
be dejected, so a resolute virtue in the deepest distress
is most impregnable.

There are joys which long to be ours. God sends
ten thousand truths, which come about us like birds
seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they
bring us nothing, but sit and sing a while upon the roof
and then fly away

Beauty ! thou pretty plaything ! dear deceit !
That steals so softly o'er the stripling's heart,
And gives it a new pulse unknown before.

We doubt not that God is a lover of beauty. He
fashioned the worlds in beauty, when there was no eye

BEAUTY.

477

to behold them but his own. All along tne wild old
forest he has carved the forms of beauty. Every
cliff, and mountain, and tree is a statue of beauty.
Every leaf, and stem, and vine, and flower is a form of
beauty. Every hill, and dale, and landscape is a
picture of beauty. Every cloud, and mist-wreath, and
vapor-vail is a shadowy reflection of beauty. Every
diamond, and rock, and pebbly beach is a mine of
beauty. Every sun, and planet, and star is a blazing
face of beauty. All along the aisles of earth, all over
the arches of heaven, all through the expanses of the
universe, are scattered in rich and infinite profusion the
life-gems of beauty. All this great realm of dazzling
and bewildering beauty was made by God. What
shall we say then, is he not a lover of beauty?

There is beauty in the songsters of the air. The
symmetry of their bodies, the wing so light and expert
in fanning the breeze, the graceful neck and head, their
tiny feet and legs, all so well fitted for their native
element, and more than this, their sweet notes that
awaken delight in every heart that loves to rejoice.
Who can range the sunny fields and shady forests on a
bright summer's day, and listen to the melody of a
thousand voices chanting their Maker's praise, and not
feel the soul melt with joy and gratitude for such
refreshing scenes.

The universe is its temple; and those men who are
alive to it cannot lift their eyes without feeling them-
selves encompassed with it on every side. Now this
beauty is so precious, the enjoyments it gives are so

47S

BEAUTY.

refined and pure, so congenial with our tenderest and
noblest feelings, and so akin to worship, that it is painful
to think of the multitude of men as living in the midst
of it. and living almost as blind to it as if, instead of
this fair earth and glorious sky, they were tenants of a
dungeon. An infinite joy is lost to the world by the
want of culture of this spiritual endowment.

The highest style of beauty to be found in nature
pertains to the human form, as animated and lighted
up by the intelligence within. It is the expression of
the soul that constitutes this superior beauty. It is
that which looks out at the eye. which sits in calm
majesty on the brow, lurks on the lip, smiles on the
cheek, is set forth in the chiselled lines and features of
the countenance, in the general contour of figure and
form, in the movement, and gesture, and tone : it is
this looking out of the invisible spirit that dwells
within, this manifestation of the higher nature, that we
admire and love; this constitutes to us the beauty of
our species. Hence it is that certain features, not in
themselves particularly attractive, wanting, it may be,
in certain regularity of outline, or in certain delicacy
and softness, are still invested in a peculiar charm and
radiance of beauty from their peculiar expressiveness
and animation. The light of genius, the superior glow
of sympathy, and a noble heart, play upon those plain,
and it may be. homely features, and light them up
with a brilliant and regal beauty. Those, as every
artist know, are the most difficult to portray. The
expression changes with the instant. Beauty flashes,

BEAUTY. 479

and is gone, or gives place to a still higher beauty, as
the light that plays in fitful confiscations along the
Northern sky, coming and going, but never still.

We would now dwell upon the beauty of spirit, soul,
mind, heart, life. There is a beauty which perishes
not. It is such as the angels wear. It forms the
washed white robes of the saints. It wreathes the
countenance of every doer of good. It adorns every
honest face. It shines in the virtuous life. It molds
the hands of charity. It sweetens the voice of sym-
pathy. It sparkles on the brow of wisdom. It flashes
in the eye of love. It breathes in the spirit of piety.
It is the beauty of the heaven of heavens. It is that
which may grow by the hand of culture in every
human soul. It is the flower of the spirit which blos-
soms on the tree of life. Every soul may plant and
nurture it in its own garden, in its own Eden. This is
the capacity for beauty that God has given to the
human soul, and this the beauty placed within the reach
of us all. We may all be beautiful. Though our
forms may be uncomely and our features not the pret-
tiest, our spirits may be beautiful. And this inward
beauty always shines through. A beautiful heart will
flash out in the eye. A lovely soul will glow in the
face. A sweet spirit will tune the voice, wreathe the
countenance in charms. Oh, there is a power in
interior beauty that melts the hardest heart!

Woman, by common consent, we regard as the most
perfect type of beauty on earth. To her we ascribe
the highest charms belonging to this wonderful element
so profusely mingled in all God's works. Her form is

480

BEAUTY.

molded and finished in exquisite delicacy of perfection.
The earth gives us no form more perfect, no features
more symmetrical, no style more chaste, no movements
more graceful, no finish more complete; so that our
artists ever have and ever will regard the woman-form
of humanity as the most perfect earthly type of beauty.
This form is most perfect and symmetrical in the youth
of womanhood; so that youthful woman is earth's
queen of beauty. This is true, not only by the com-
mon consent of mankind, but also by the strictest rules
of scientific criticism.

This being an admitted fact, woman, and especially
youthful woman, is laid under strong obligations and
exposed to great temptations. Beauty has wonderful
charms. A charming gift of pleasure. Beauty will
not only win for her admiring eyes, but it will win her
favor; it will draw hearts toward her; it will awaken
tender and agreeable feelings in her behalf; it will
disarm the stranger of the peculiar prejudices he often
has toward those he knows not; it will pave the way
to esteem; it will weave the links to friendship's chain;
it will throw an air of agreeableness into the manners
of all who approach her. All this her beauty will do
for her before she puts forth a single effort of her own
to win the esteem and love of her fellows.

Socrates called beauty a short-lived tyranny; Plato,
a privilege of nature; Theophrastus, a silent cheat;
Theocritus, a delightful prejudice ; Cameades, a solitary
kingdom; Domitian said, that nothing was more grate-
ful; Aristotle affirmed, that beauty was better than all
the letters of recommendation in the world; Homer,

BEAUTY.

481

that it was a glorious gilt of nature; and Ovid calls it
a favor bestowed by the gods. But, as regards the
elements of beauty in women, it is not too much to say
that no woman can be beautiful by force of features
alone; there must be as well sweetness and beauty of
soul. Beauty has been called "the power and aims of
woman." Diogenes called it "woman's most forcible
letter of recommendation." Caoneades represented it
as " a queen without soldiers;" and Theocritus says it
is "a serpent covered with flowers;" while a modern
author defines it "a bait that as often catches the fisher
as the fish." Nearly all the old philosophers denounced
and ridiculed beauty as evanescent, worthless and mis-
chievous; but, alas! while they preached against it they
were none the less its slaves. None of them were able
to withstand "the sly, smooth witchcraft of a fair
young face." A really beautiful woman is a natural
queen in the universe of love, where all hearts pay a
glad tribute to her reign.

Nothing is all dark. There cannot be a picture
without its bright spots; and the steady contemplation
of what is bright in others, has a reflex influence upon
the beholder.. It reproduces what it reflects. Nay, it
seems to leave an impress even upon the countenance.
The feature, from having a dark, sinister aspect, be-
comes open, serene, and sunny. A countenance so
impressed, has neither the vacant stare of the idiot,
nor the crafty, penetrating look of the basilisk, but the
clear placid aspect of truth and goodness. The woman
who has such a face is beautiful. She has a beauty
which changes not with the features, which fades not
31

482

BEAUTY.

with years. It is beauty of expression. It is the only
kind of beauty which can be relied upon for a perma-
nent influence with the other sex. The violet will soon
cease to smile. Flowers must fade. The love that
has nothing but beauty to sustain it soon withers away.
A pretty woman pleases the eye; a good woman, the
heart. The one is a jewel, the other a treasure.
Invincible fidelity, good humor, and complacency
of temper, outlive all the charms of a fine face, and
make the decay of it invisible. That is true beauty
which has not only a substance, but a spirit; a beauty
that we must intimately know to justly appreciate.

Beauty has been not unaptly, though perhaps rather
vulgarly, defined as "all in my eye,1' since it addresses
itself solely to that organ, and is intrinsically of little
value. From this ephemeral flower spring many of
the ingredients of matrimonial unhappiness. It is a
dangerous gift for both its possessor and its admirer.
If its possession, as is often the case, turns the head,
while its loss sours the temper, if the long regret of
its decay outweighs the fleeting pleasure of its bloom,
the plain should pity rather than envy the handsome.
Beauty of countenance, which, being the light of the
soul shining through the face, is independent of features
or complexion, is the most attractive as well as the
most enduring charm. Nothing but talent and amia-
bility can bestow it, no statue or picture can rival it,
and time itself cannot destroy it.

Beauty, dear reader, is probably the woman yow
love best, but we trust it is the beauty of soul and
chlj|acter, which sits in calm majesty on the brow.

MUSIC.

483

lurks on the lip, and will outlive what is called a fine
face.

Man, however, is not the highest type of beauty; for
in him, as in all things on earth, is mingled along with
the beauty much that is deformed — with the excellence
much imperfection. We can conceive forms superior
to his — faces radiant with a beauty that sin has never
darkened, nor passion nor sorrow dimmed. We can
conceive forms of beauty more perfect, purer, brighter,
loftier than anything that human eyes have ever seen.
Imagination fashions these conceptions, and art pro-
duces it. This, the poet, the painter, the sculptor, the
architect, the orator, each in his own way, is ever
striving to do, to present, under sensible forms, the
ideal of a more perfect loveliness and excellence than
the actual world affords. This, however, cannot be
done successfully, as perfection of beauty dwells alone
with God.

" When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music, with her silver sound,
With speedy help doth lend redress."

O the rapturous charm of music ! What power it
has to softer, melt, enchain in its spirit-chords of ^b-
duing harmony ! Truly there is power in music }mn

484

MUSIC.

- almost omnipotent power. It will tyrannize over the
soul. It will force it to bow down and worship, it will
wring adoration from it, and compel the heart to yield
its treasures of love. Every emotion, from the most
reverent devotion to the wildest gushes of frolicsome
joy, it holds subject to its imperative will. It calls the
religious devotee to worship, the patriot to his country's
altar, the philanthropist to his generous work, the free-
man to the temple of liberty, the friend to the altar of
friendship, the lover to the side of his beloved. It
elevates, empowers, and strengthens them all. The
human soul is a mighty harp, and all its strings vibrate
to, the gush of music.

Who does not know the softening power of music,
especially the music of the human voice? It is like the '
angel-whisperings of kind words in the hour of trouble.
Who can be angry when the voice of love speaks in
song? Who hears the harsh voice of selfishness, and
brutalizing passion, when music gathers up her pearly
love-notes to salute the ear with a stray song of para-
dise? Sing to the wicked man, sing to the disconso-
late, sing to the sufferer, sing to the old, and sing to
the children, for music will inspire them all.

The human voice is the most perfect musical instru-
ment ever made; and well it might be, for it had the
most skillful Maker. The voice should be cultivated
to sing the tones of love to man and God. Around
the fireside, in the social circle, it should sing the voice
of love, and at the altar of God it should pour forth
melodious praise.

How sweet does it make the worship of God to have

MUSIC.

485

the reverent emotions poured out in song! How early
should children be taught to sing; for what is sweeter
than the songs of innocent childhood, so refining, so
refreshing, so suggestive of heaven? Music sweetens
the cup of bitterness, softens the hand of want, lightens
the burden of life, makes the heart courageous, and the
soul cheerfully devout. Into the soul of childhood and
youth it pours a tide of redeeming influence. Its first
and direct effect is to mentalize the musical performer;
not to give him knowledge, nor more wisdom in the
practical, business affairs of life, but to stir his mental
being to activity, to awaken strong emotions, to move
among the powers within as a common electrifier,
touching here with tenderness, there with energy, now
with holy aspiration, and anon with the inspiring thrill
of beauty. It breathes like a miracle of inspiration
through the soul, to elevate, refine, and spiritualize.
No lethargy can exist in the soul that is pouring forth
a tide of music numbers. Its very recesses are all
astir. Everything within becomes active; the percep-
tions acute, the affections warm, the moral sensibilities
quick and sensitive. When we think how much the
world wants awakening, we can think of no power
better calculated to do it than that which dwells in the
mysterious melodies of music. Let every body become
musicians, and surely they would become living souls,
Besides music being powerful, universal, the voice
of love, and the type of the infinite, it is venerable for
its age. As it is the voice of God's love, we know not
but it is co-existent with His being. It is reasonable to
suppose that its swelling numbers have rolled and made*

486

MUSIC.

heaven vocal with its strains of praise since creation
dawned. But the first account of it on record was at
the laying of the foundations of the earth, when the
"morning stars," delighted with the promise of a new
planet, "sang together, and all the sons of God shouted
for joy," As soon as the earth was made, its rocky
spires thrown up, its forest harps strung, its ocean
organs tuned, it raised its everlasting anthem to swell
the chorus of the skies.

Every song soothes and uplifts. It is just possible
that at times a song is as good as a prayer. Indeed r
a song of the pure kind recognized in Scripture, is akin
to a petition, which it is also in the spirit of thanks-
giving. The "sweet singer of Israel" wedded his
sincerest prayers to melody and wafted them upward
on the night air from his throbbing heart. In the soul
that has been touched and made tender by the fingers
of pain, music finds a place where it may murmur its
sweetest chords.

Music is healthful. There is no better cure for bad
humors, and no medicine more pleasant to take. We
cannot join those who lament that the piano is heard
where once the monotone of the spinning-wheel, and
the click of the shuttle, were the only instrumental per-
formances. It is a matter of rejoicing rather that
muscles of iron and fingers of steel, driven by the tire-
less elements, now perform the laborious work of cloth
manufacture and give leisure to cultivate refined tastes
in the household. Music is to the ear and to the intel-
lect what strawberries, peaches, and other luscious
fruits, are to the taste. Who regrets that the forests

MUSIC.

487

have been cleared, the walls and fences built, the grain
crops made sufficiently easy of cultivation, to allow the
addition of the fruit yard and garden for the enjo3'ment
of the cultivator? One of the greatest attractions for
old End young, when visiting our cities, is the music
tr^a: may be heard here. Why should the farmer's
household not be as cheerful, as full of pleasure as that
of the merchant or the professional man? We know
of nothing more genial and heart-warming than to
hear the whole family joining in a hymn or song. They
will love each other and their home better for it. Songs
learned in childhood are like birds nestling in the
bosom; their notes will be heard and loved in after
years. The hymn sung by a mother to her little boy
may in after days be a voice that will recall him from
ruin.

No family can afford to do without music. It is a
luxury and an economy; an alleviator of sorrow, and a
spring of enjoyment; a protection against vice and an
incitement to virtue. When rightly used, its effects,
physical, intellectual and moral, are good, very good,
and onfy good. Make home attractive; music affords
a means of doing this. Contribute kindly feeling, love.
Music will help in this work. Keep out angry feeling.
"Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast."
Show us the family where good music is cultivated,
where the parents and children are accustomed often to
mingle their voices together in song, and we will show
you one where peace, harmony and love prevail, and
where the great vices have no abiding place.

One morning the sweet voice of a woman was heard

488

MUSIC.

singing a ballad in one of the tenement house districts
of the Garden City. The effect of it was almost
magical. Not only did children swarm out of their
dingy homes and surround the singer, but the stoops
were crowded by adults, and old heads leaned out of
windows for several blocks on either side. Faces
brightened everywhere. The blacksmith ceased his
din and stood with arms akimbo on the sidewalk. The
poor, sick widow in a near tenement listened and forgot
her sorrow and pain; the broad-faced wife whose stolid
countenance, hardened by want and contact with vice,
paused from her employment, and as she listened some-
thing touched her heart, her better nature was stirred,
and beating time to the simple melody, wished she had
a penny to give the songster.

The hod-carriers halted; the well-dressed pedestrian,
on whose face, when he saw the crowd gathering, there
was at first a look of disdain, as if he would say, "No
hand-organ music for me, if you please," at last stood
still and blushed, as the beauty of the song stirred his
inmost heart. And when the music ceased, the listen
ers turned again to their employments, as if refreshed
in spirits and quickened to contented thoughts of the
work-a-day world.

Music means not merely tunes adapted to particular
emotions — a set of notes, a warbling voice, a strain of
"melting sweetness" — O! no: music can be acted as
well as sung. The heart may make music when the
lips are dumb. A simple word may be full of music,
and stir the pulses to new and better emotions, the soul
to higher joys! The harmony of a well ordered life

489

is most graceful music; the tender cares and caresses
of a wife; her fond solicitude to make home all it
should be; the kindred gentleness and affection of the
husband; the quiet and ready obedience of the chil-
dren— all these, do they not make a household of
music, that in the land beyond shall be chanted by
choirs of angels, when at last such families meet,
unbroken bands, in heaven?

If only sound were music, how many thousands
would be denied that delightful solace! Some there
are who cannot sing — and yet whose natures are
finest harps, from which an unheard melody (unheard
by mortal ears) is continually ascending. Some there
are who cannot even speak, nor hear, and yet their
sympathies, their nice comprehensions, are beautiful
with the subtle instinct of melody. O ! tell us where
music is not! Now we hear it in the pensive sound
of the autumnal winds — we see it in the sparkling
flow of the bright river; we hear it, as it were, in the
morning stars; and just now a sweet voice uttered
words of music. It is in all the elements; the flame
hath a cheerful hum of its own, and the crackling
sparks beat time. The water ripples with music; the
air is always whispering melody, and the bountiful
earth ceases never its songs of praise. The trickling
rain-drops sing as they fall ; the crowded leaves answer
to the pipes of the birds; the sun sets the day to sing-
ing, and the Almighty hath made man to sing songs
of praise to him, throughout all eternity.

But the world needs music — the touching domestic
song that tells in few words the loves, the trials, or the

490

HONOR.

blisses of life — the more sacred music that leads the
soul to communion with God — it needs music — its
poor cry aloud for music; they are tired of the inhar-
monious din of toil, and a few sweet notes brine: with
them hours of pleasure to the weary and world-forsaken.

To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory
and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and
incentive of virtue; but to be ambitious of titles, of
place, of ceremonial respects and civil pageantry, is as
vain and little as the things we court.

True honor, as defined by Cicero, is the concur-
rent approbation of good men; those only being fit to
give true praise who are themselves praiseworthy.
Anciently the Romans worshiped virtue and honor as
gods ; they built two temples, which were so seated
that none could enter the temple of honor without
passing through the temple of virtue.

The way to be truly honored is to be illustriously
good. Maximilian, the German emperor, replied to
one who desired his letters patent to ennoble him,
saying, I am able to make you rich; but virtue must
make you noble. Who would not desire the honor
that Agesiaus, king of Sparta, had, who was fined b}'
the Sphori for having stolen away all the hearts of the

HONOR.

49{

people to himself alone? Of whom it is said that he
ruled his country by obeying it. It is with glory as
with beauty ; for as a single fine lineament cannot
make a fine face, neither can a single good quality
render a man accomplished ; but a concurrence of many
fine features and good qualities make true beauty and
true honor.

The Athenians raised \ noble statue to the memory
of ^Esop, and placed a slave on a pedestal, that men
might know the way to honor was open to all. The
man of honor is internal, the person of honor an
external; the one a real, the other a fictitious charac-
ter. A person of honor may be a profane libertine,
penurious, proud, may insult his inferiors, and defraud
his creditors; but it is impossible for a man of honor
to be guilty of any of these.

Among the ancient Greeks and Romans, in their
best days, honor was more sought after than wealth.
Times are changed. Now, wealth is the surest pass-
port to honor ; and respectability is endangered by
poverty. "Rome, was Rome no more" when the
imperial purple had become an article of traffic, and
when gold could purchase with ease the honors that
patriotism and valor could once secure only with
difficulty.

There is no true glory, no true greatness, without
virtue; without which we do but abuse all the good
things we have, whether they be great, or little, false
or real. Riches make us either covetous or prodigal;
fine palaces make us despise the poor and poverty; a
great number of domestics flatter human pride, which

492

0ENIU8 AND TALENT..

uses them like slaves ; valor oftentimes turns brutal
and unjust; and a high pedigree makes a man take up
with the virtues of his ancestors, without endeavoring
to acquire any himself

It is a fatal and delusive ambition which allures
many to the pursuit of honors as suck1 or as accessions
to some greater object in view. The substance is
dropped to catch the shade, and the much coveted
distinctions, in nine cases our of ten, prove to be mere
airy phantasms and gilded mists. Real honor and real
esteem are not difficult to be obtained in the world, but
they are best won by actual worth and merit, rather
than by art and intrigue which run a long and ruinous
race, and seldom seize upon the prize at last. Seek
not to be honored in any way save in thine own bosom,
within thyself.

"Honor and shame from no condition rise:
Act well your part, there all the honor lies."

Genius is of the soul, talent of the understanding;
genius is warm, talent is passionless. Without genius
there is no intuition, no inspiration; without talent, no
execution. Genius is interior, talent exterior; hence
genius is productive, talent accumulative Genius
invents, talent accomplishes. Genius gives the sub-

GENIUS AND TALENT.

493

stance, talent works it up under the eye, or rather
under the feeling, of genius.

Genius is that quality or character of the mind which
is inventive, or generates; which gives to the world
new ideas in science, art, literature, morals, or religion,
which recognizes no set rules or principles, but is a law
unto itself, and rejoices in its own originality; which
admitting of a direction, never follows the old beaten
track, but strikes out for a new course; which has no
fears of public opinion, nor leans upon public favor — ■
always leads but never follows, which admits no truth
unless convinced by experiment, reflection, or investi-
gation, and never bows to the ipse dixit of any man,
or society, or creed.

Talent is that power or capacity of mind which
reasons rapidly from cause to effect ; which sees through
a thing at a glance, and comprehends the rules and
principles upon which it works; which can take in
knowledge without laborious mental study, and needs
no labored illustrations to impress a principle or a fact,
no matter how abstruse, hidden, complex, or intricate.
Differing from genius by following rules and principles,
but capable of comprehending the works of genius —
imitating with ease, and thereby claiming a certain
kind of originality, talent is the able, comprehensive
agent; while genius is the master director.

Genius is emotional, talent intellectual; hence genius
is creative, and talent instrumental. Genius has insight,
talent only outsight. Genius is always calm, reserved,
self-centered; talent is often bustling, officious, confi-
dent. Genius is rather inward, creative, and angelic;

434

GENIUS AND TALENT.

talent, outward, practical, and worldly. Genius dis-
dains and defies imitation; talent is often the result
of universal imitation in respect to everything that
may contribute to the desired excellence. Genius has
quick and strong sympathies, and is sometimes given
to reverie and vision; talent is cool and wise, and sel-
dom loses sight of common sense. Genius is born for
a particular purpose, in which it surpasses; talent is
versatile, and may make a respectable figure at almost
anything. Genius gives the impulse and aim as well
as the illumination; talent the means and implements.
Genius, in short, is the central, finer essence of the
mind, the self-lighted fire, the intuitional gift. Talent
gathers and shapes and applies what genius forges.
Genius is often entirely right, and is never wholly
wrong ; talent is never wholly right. Genius avails
itself of all the capabilities of talent, appropriates to
itself what suits and helps it. Talent can appropriate
to itself nothing, for it has not the inward heat that
can fuse all material and assimilate all food to convert
it into blood; this only genius can do. Goethe was a
man of genius, and at the same time of immense and
varied talents; and no contemporary profited so much
as he did by all the knowledges, discoveries and accu-
mulations made by others.

Talent is full of thoughts ; but genius full of thought.
Genius makes its observations in short hand; talent
writes them out at length. Talent is a very common
family trait, genius belongs rather to individuals; just
as you find one giant or one dwarf in a family, but
rarely a whole brood of either. Men of genius are

GENIUS AND TALENT.

495

often dull and inert in society, as the blazing meteor
when it descends to earth is only a stone. For full
success the two, genius and talent, should coexist in
one mind in balanced proportions, as they did in
Goethe's, so that they can play smoothly together
in effective combination. The work of the world,
even the higher ranges, being done by talent, talent,
backed by industry, is sure to achieve outward suc-
cess. Commonplace is the smooth road on which are
borne the freights that supply the daily needs of life;
but genius, as the originator of all appliances and aids
and motions and improvements, is the parent of what
is to-day common — of all that talent has turned to
practical account.

It is one of the mysteries of our life that genius, that
noblest gift of God to man, is nourished by poverty.
Its greatest works have been achieved by the sorrowing
ones of the world in tears and despair. Not in the
brilliant saloon, furnished with every comfort and
elegance; not in the library well fitted, softly carpeted,
and looking out upon a smooth, green lawn, or a broad
expanse of scenery; not in ease and competence, is
genius born and nurtured ; more frequently in adversity
and destitution, amidst the harrassing cares of a strait-
ened household, in bare and fireless garrets, with the
noise of squalid children, in the midst of the turbulence
of domestic contentions, and in the deep gloom of
uncheered despair, is genius born and reared. This is
its birth-place and in scenes like these, unpropitioust
repulsive, wretched, have men labored, studied and
trained themselves, until they have at last emanated

496

GENIUS AND TALENT.

out of the gloom of that obscurity the shining lights
of their times, become the companions of kings, the
guides and teachers of their kind, and exercise an
influence upon the thought of the world amounting to
a species of intellectual legislation.

Genius involves a more than usual susceptibility to
divine promptings, a delicacy in spiritual speculation, a
quick obedience to the invisible helmsman; and these
high superiorities imply fineness and fullness of organ-
ization. The man of genius is subject, says Joubert, to
"transport, or rather rapture, of mind." In this exalted
state he has glimpses of truth, beauties, principles, laws>
that are new revelations, and bring additions to human
power. Goethe might have been thinking of Kepler
when he said, " Genius is that power of man which by
thought and action gives laws and rules;" and Cole-
ridge of Milton, when he wrote, " The ultimate end of
genius is ideal;" and Hegel may have had Michael
Angelo in his mind when, in one of his chapters on the
plastic arts, he affirms that "talent cannot do its part
fully without the animation, the besouling of genius."

Great powers and natural gifts do not bring privi-
leges to their possessors, so much as they bring duties.
A cotemporary, in dilating on genius, thus sagely
remarks: "The talents granted to a single individual
do not benefit himself alone, but are gifts to the world;
every one shares them, for every one suffers or benefits
by his actions. Genius is a light-house, meant to give
light from afar; the man who bears it is but the rock
upon which the light-house is built."

Hath God given you genius and learning? It was

THINKERS.

497

not that you might amuse or deck yourself with it and
kindle a blaze which should only serve to attract and
dazzle the eyes of men. It was intended to be the
means of leading both yourself and them to the Father
of lights. And it will be your duty, according to the
peculiar turn of that genius and capacity, either to
endeavor to promote and adorn human life, or, by a
more direct application of it to divine subjects, to plead
the cause of religion, to defend its truths, to enforce
and recommend its practice, to deter men from courses
which would be dishonorable to God and fatal to them-
selves, and to try the utmost efforts of all the solemn-
ity and tenderness with which you can . clothe your
addresses, to lead them into the paths of virtue and
happiness.

Thinkers rise upon us like new stars — a few in a

i

century. The multitude run after them, and, like
Lazarus, eat the crumbs that fall from their table.
They follow them by instinct ; they adopt their theories
and accept their thoughts at sight. Calvin rose and
thought. What a multitude swallowed his hard, rock}^
thoughts, as though they were digestible mental food !
Wesley rose, and another multitude followed him,
much as Mohammedans followed their prophet. Swe-
denborg rose in the North, and straightway a cloud of
32

498

THINKERS.

witnesses appeared about him to testify to all he wrote.
Davis came above the horizan, and lo ! an army follows
in his train. So it is; men swallow whole what they
eat, wheat or chaff, meat or bone, nut or shell. They
do not masticate their mental food ; they do not
examine the facts they learn; the.y do not digest their
knowledge. If they did we should not have schools
of men, sects, parties, but one grand lyceum of indi-
vidual thinkers; every one making his own use of his
knowledge, forming his own conclusions, and working
out his own kind and degree of culture. We read
enough to have a generation of philosophers.

Dull thinkers are always led by sharp ones. The
keen intellect cuts its way smoothly, gracefully, rap-
idly; the dull one wears its life out against the simplest
problems. To perceive accurately and to think cor-
rectly, is the aim of all mental training. Heart and
conscience are more than the mere intellect. Yet we
cannot tell how much the clear, clean-cut thought, the
intellectual vision, sharp and true, may aid even these.
Some say that a man never feels till he sees, and when
the object disappears, the feeling ceases. So we can-
not exaggerate the importance of clear, correct think-
ing. We should eat, drink, sleep, walk, exercise body
and mind, to this end. Just so far as we fail, we make
doits and idiots of ourselves. We cast away our
natural armor and defense. The designing make us
dupes; we are overreached by the crafty, and trodden
under foot by the strong.

Undigested learning is as oppressive as undigested
food; and as in the dyspeptic patient, the appetite for

THINKERS.

499

food often grows with the inability to digest it, so in
the unthinking patient, an overweening desire to know
often accompanies the inability to know to any purpose.
Thought is to the brain what gastric juice is to the
stomach — a solvent to reduce whatever is received to
a condition in which all that is wholesome and nutritive
may be appropriated, and that alone. To learn merely
for the sake of learning, is like eating merely for the
taste of the food. The mind will wax fat and unwieldy,
like the body of the gormand. The stomach is to the
frame what memory is to the mind; and it is as unwise
to cultivate the memory at the expense of the mind
as it would be to enlarge the capacity of the stomach
by eating more food than the wants of the frame
require, or food that it could not appropriate. To learn
in order to become wise makes the mind active and
powerful, like the body of one who is temperate and
judicious in meat and drink. Learning is healthfully
digested by the mind when it reflects upon what is
learned, classifies and arranges facts and circumstances,
considers the relations of one to another, and places
what is taken into the mind at different times in rela-
tion to the same subjects under their appropriate heads;
so that the various stores are not heterogeneously piled
up, but laid away in order, and may be referred to
with ease when wanted. If a person's daily employ-
ments are such as demand a constant exercise of the
thoughts, all the leisure should not be devoted to read-
ing, but a part reserved for reflecting upon and arrang-
ing in the mind what is read. The manner of reading
is much more important than the quantity. To hurry

500

THINKERS.

through many books, retaining only a confused knowl-
edge of their contents, is but a poor exercise of the
brain ; it is far better to read with care a few well
selected volumes.

Some of the great advantages of thinking are the
following : First, it transfers and conveys the senti-
ments of others to ourselves, so as to make them prop-
erty our own. Secondly, it enables us to distinguish
truth from error, and to reject what is wrong after we
have seen, read, or heard anything. Thirdly, by this
we fix in our memory only what we best approve of,
without loading it with all that we read. Lastly, by
properly meditating on what 'comes within the view of
our minds, we may improve upon the sentiments or
inventions of others, and thereby acquire great reputa-
tion, and perhaps emolument, from their labors.

All mental superiority originates in habits of think-
ing. A child, indeed, like a machine, may be made to
perform certain functions by external means; but it is
only when he begins to think that he rises to the dignity
of a rational being. It is not reading, but thinking,
that gives you the possession of knowledge. A person
may see, hear, read and learn whatever he pleases and
as much as he pleases; but he will know very little, if
anything, of it, beyond that which he has thought over
and made the property of his mind. Take away thought
from the life of man and what remains? You may
glean knowledge by reading, but you must separate the
chaff from the wheat by thinking.

At every action and enterprise, ask yourself this
question: What will the consequence of this be to me?

Til iWKERS. 501

Am I not likely to repent of it? I shall be dead in a
little time, and then all is over with me. Whatever
thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt
never do amiss. Think before you speak, and consider
before you promise. Take time to deliberate and
advise; but lose no time in executing your resolutions.
Do nothing to-day that you will repent of to-morrow.
In the morning think of what you have to do, and at
night ask yourself what you have done. Seek not cut
the thoughts that are too hard for thee. Strive not in a
matter that concerneth thee not. Evil thoughts are
dangerous enemies, and should be repulsed at the
threshold of our minds. Fill the head and heart with
good thoughts, that there be no room for bad ones.

Some persons complain that they cannot find words
for their thoughts, when the real trouble is they cannot
find thoughts for their words. The man who thinks
laboriously ■ will express himself concisely. It is only
by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only
by thought that labor can be made happy. It is not
depth of thought which makes obscure to others the
work of a thinker; real and offensive obscurity comes
merely of inadequate thought embodied in inadequate
language. What is clearly comprehended or conceived,
what is duly wrought and thought out, must find
for itself and - seize upon the clearest and fullest expres-
sion. Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be
tried. The best thoughts are ever swiftest winged, the
duller lag behind. A thought must have its own way
of expression, or it will have no way at all. The
thought that lives is only the deeds struggling into

502

THINKERS.

birth. It is with our thoughts as with our flowers —
those that are simple in expression carry their seed
with them; those that are double charm the mind, but
produce nothing.

There is much need of independent thought in our
day. Too many yield to the opinions of others with-
out asking or meditating upon their bearing. Often-
times the masses are enslaved to opinion, especially in
political matters. This may be necessary in some
countries, where a few rule, but not in our country,
where, through a liberal education, all may be taught
to think. Books are so cheap now that the poorest can
have access to the channels of thought. Books, how-
ever, should only be used as an impetus to set the mind
in motion and set it to prying deeper and farther into
nature's hidden recesses and boundless realms of truth,
or, as a stone that is cast into the calm bosom of the
lake causes waves to roll and roll on against the
remotest outlines of the shore. It behooves us to cast
ofF the shackles of opinion and walk resolutely before
the world, guided by a well-grounded opinion of our
own. Every man and woman ought to favor his age
with new thoughts, new ideas, as an addition to the
great store-house of ideas, with thoughts that will live
though empires fall and language dies. Such men and
women raise the world from one degree to another
higher in the scale of civilization and intelligence-
Such are the lives that receive the plaudit, "Well
done;" such are lives virtuous, noble and godlike.

No man need fear that he will exhaust his substance
of thought, if he will only draw his inspiration Irom

BENEFACTORS OR MALEFACTORS.

503

actual human life. There the inexhaustible God pours
depths and endless variety of truth, and the true thinker
is but a shorthand writer endeavoring to report the
discourse of God. Shall a child on the banks of the
Amazon fear lest he should drink up the stream?

We are all well doers or evil doers. "None of us
liveth to himself." We die, but leave an influence
behind us that survives.

The echoes of our words are evermore repeated,
and reflected along the ages. It is what man was
that lives and acts after him. What he said sounds
along the years like voices amid the mountain gorges;
and what he did is repeated after him in ever-multi
plying and never-ceasing reverberations. Every man
has left behind him influences for^good or for evil that
will never exhaust themselves. The sphere in which
he acts may be small, or it may be great. It may be
his fireside, or it may be a kingdom; a village, or a
great nation; it may be a parish, or broad Europe;
but act he does, ceaselessly and forever. His friends,
his family, his successors in office, his relatives, are all
receptive of an influence, a moral influence which he
has transmitted and bequeathed to mankind; either a

\

504 BENEFACTORS OR MALEFACTORS.

blessing which will repeat itself in showers of benedic-
tions, or a curse which will multiply itself in ever-
accumulating evil.

Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for
good or for evil, whether he intends and designs it, or
not. He may be a blot, radiating his dark influence
outward to the very circumference of society, or he
may be a blessing, spreading benedictions* over the
length and breadth of the world; but a blank lie can-
not be. The seed sown in life springs up in harvests of
blessings, or harvests of sorrow. Whether our influ-
ence be great or small, whether it be for good or evil,
it lasts, it lives somewhere, within some limit, and is
operative wherever it is. The grave buries the dead
dust, but the character walks the world, and distributes
itself, as a benediction or a curse, among the families
of mankind.

The sun sets beyond the western hills, but the trail
of light he leaves behind him guides the pilgrim to his
distant home. The tree falls in the forest; but in the
lapse of ages it is turned into coal, and our fires burn
now the brighter because it grew and fell. The coral
insect dies, but the reef it raised breaks the surge on
the shores of great continents, or has formed an isle in
♦the bosom of the ocean, to wave with harvests for the
good of man. We live and we die; but the good or
evil that we do lives after us, and is not "buried with
our bones."

The babe that perished on the bosom of its mother,
like a flower that bowed its head and drooped amid

BENEFACTORS OR MALEFACTORS. 505
i

the death-frosts of time — that babe, not only in its
image, but in its influence, still lives and speaks in the
chambers of the mother's heart:.

The friend with whom we tcoK sweet counsel is
removed visibly from the outward eye; but the lessons
that he taught, the grand sentiments that he uttered,
the holy deeds of generosity by which he was charac-
terized, the moral lineaments and likeness of the man,
still survive and appear in the silence of eventide, and
on the tablets of memory, and in the light of morn and
noon, and dewy eve; and, being dead, he yet speaks
eloquently, and in the midst of us.

Mahomet still lives in his practical and disastrous
influence in the East. Napoleon still is France, and
France is almost Napoleon. Martin Luther's dead
dust sleeps at Wittenburg, but Martin Luther's accents
still ring through the churches of Christendom. Shakes-
peare, Byron, and Milton, all live in their influence, for
good or evil. The apostle from his chair, the minister
from his pulpit, the martyr from his flame-shroud, the
statesman from his cabinet, the soldier in the field, the
sailor on the deck, who all have passed away to their
graves, still live in the practical deeds that they did, in
the lives they lived, and in the powerful lessons that
\hey left behind them.

"None of us liveth to himself; " others are affected
by that life; "or dieth to himself;'' others are inter-
ested in that death. The queen's crown may moulder,
but she who wore it will act upon the ages which are
yet to come. The noble's coronet may be reft in pieces,
but the wearer of it is now doing what will be reflected

500

BENEFACTORS OR MALEFACTORS.

by thousands who will be made and moulded by him.
Dignity, and rank, and riches, are all corruptible and
worthless ; but moral character has an immortality that
no sword-point can destroy; that ever walks the world
and leaves lasting influences behind.

What we do is transacted on a stage of which all in
the universe are spectators. What we say is transmit-
ted in echoes that will never cease. What we are is
influencing and acting on the rest of mankind. Neutral
we cannot be. Living we act. and dead we speak; (and.
the whole universe is the mighty company forever look-
ing, forever listening; and all nature the tablets forever
recording the words, the deeds, the thoughts, the
passions of mankind!

Monuments, and columns, and statues, erected to
heroes, poets, orators, statesmen, are all influences
that extend into the future ages. The blind old man
of Scio's rocky isle still speaks. The Mantuan bard
still sings in every school. Shakespeare, the bard of
Avon, is still translated into every tongue. The phi-
losophy of the Stagyrite is still felt in every academy.
Whether these influences are beneficent or the reverse,
they are influences fraught with power. How blest
must be the recollection of those who, like the setting
sun. have left a trail of light behind them by which
others may see the way to that rest which remaineth
tor the people of God!

Since our earthly life is so brief, "and the night will
soon come when the murmur and hum of our days
shall be dumb evermore," it were well to have mile
stones by the way pointing to a better land. Ah ! these

BENEFACTORS OR MALEFACTORS.

507

are the true laborers in the world's great harvest iield
in any and in all its varied departments.

The yeoman, gathering treasures from the bosom of
the earth, and thus aiding in the sustenance of human-
ity; the miner, delving into the deep cavern and bring-
ing forth diamonds and precious stones, adding to the
world's vast wealth ; the manufacturer, sending the
costly fabrics through the land, and securing exchange
from foreign countries; the architect, with the proud
monuments of his skill ; the sculptor, with his chisel
carving the form divine ; the artist, writing out in
letters of abiding light the faces we so fondly love, and
thus blessing us with the continued presence of not
only our absent ones, but also those who "are not,"
since God hath taken them; all these are truly earth's
benefactors, and yet only the silver links in the mighty
chain.

Would we be numbered among earth's benefactors,
and have our .middle and latest \ life filled with richest
and holiest experiences, we must be ofttimes oblivious
oi self, con well the lesson contained in the "Golden
Rule," and be still further perfected in the two great
commandments, "on which hang all the law and the
prophets." When all the purple and gold, the glitter
and tinsel of our earthly life is ended, and the unknown
and mysterious eternity is spread out to our immortal
vision, will it not be a source of greater joy to us to
have wiped a tear from the eye of the sorrowing, to
have soothed a weary pilgrim crossing the river of
death, pointing by an eye of faith to the "better
country," "even a heavenly," to have plumed one

508

T1UALS OF LIFE.

wing for its eternal flight, than to possess a kingly
crown, or wear fame's brightest laurels?

It is only the pure fountain that brings forth pure
water. The good tree only will produce the good
fruit. If the center from which all proceeds is pure
and holy, the radii of influence from it will be pure
and holy also. Go forth, then, into the spheres that
yTou occupy, the employments, the trades, the profes-
sions of social life ; go forth into the high places, or
into the lowly places of the land; mix with the roaring
cataracts of social convulsions, or mingle amid the
eddies and streamlets of quiet and domestic life; what-
ever sphere you fill, carry into it a holy heart, you will
radiate around you life and power, and leave behind
you holy and beneficent influences.

f mis of %iit.

Stars shine brightest in the darkest night; torches
are the better for beating ; grapes come not to the
proof till they come to the press; spices smell sweetest
when pounded ; young trees root the faster for shaking ;
vines are the better for bleeding; gold looks the brighter
for scouring ; glow-worms glisten best in the dark ;
juniper smells sweetest in the fire; pomander becomes
most fragrant for chasing ; the palm-tree proves the
better for pressing; camomile, the more you tread it,
the more you spread it. Such is the condition of men;

OR THE ROYAL PATH OF LIFE

TRIALS OF LIFE.

509

they are the most triumphant when most tempted; as
their conflicts, so their conquests; as their tribulations,
so their triumphs. True salamanders live best in the
furnace of persecution; so that heavy afflictions are the
best benefactors to heavenly affections. And where
afflictions hang heaviest, corruptions hang loosest; and
grace that is hid in nature, as sweet water in rose-
leaves, is then most fragrant when the fire of affliction
is put under to distil it out.

Do you wish to live without a trial ? Then you
wish to die but half a man — at the best but half a man.
Without trial you cannot guess at your own strength.
Men do not learn to swim on a table. They must go
into deep water and buffet the surges. A certain
amount of opposition is a great help- to a man. Kites
rise against the wind, and not with the wind; even a
head wind is better than none. No man ever worked
his passage any where in a calm. Let no man wax
pale, therefore, because of opposition ; opposition is
what he wants and must have, to be good for any
thing. Hardship is the native soil of manhood and
self-reliance.

An acorn is not an oak tree when it is sprouted. It
must go through long summers and fierce winters ; it
has to endure all that frost, and snow, and thunder,
and storm, and side-striking winds can bring, before it
is a full-grown oak. These are rough teachers ; but
rugged schoolmasters make rugged pupils. So a man
is not a man when he is created ; he is only begun.
His manhood must come with years. A man who
1 goes through life prosperous, and comes to his grave

510

TRIALS OF LIFE.

without a wrinkle, is not half a man. In time of war,
whom does the general select for some hazardous
enterprise? He looks over his men, and chooses the
soldier whom he knows will not flinch at danger, but
will go bravely through whatever is allotted to him.
He calls him that he may receive his orders, and the
officer, blushing with pleasure to be thus chosen,
hastens away to execute them. Difficulties are God's
errands. And when we are sent upon them we should
esteem it a proof of God's confidence — as a compli-
ment from God. The traveler who goes round the
world prepares himself to pass through all latitudes,
and to meet all changes. So man must be willing to
take life as it comes; to mount the hill when the hill
swells, and to go down the hill when the hill lowers;
to walk the plain when it stretches before him, and to
ford the river when it rolls over the plain. "I can do
all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

The best of people will now and them meet with
disappointments, for they are inherited by mortality.
It is, however, the better philosophy to take things
calmly and endeavor to be content with our lot. We
may at least add some rays of sunshine to our path, if
we earnestly endeavor to dispel the clouds of discontent
that may arise in our bosoms. And by so doing, we
the more fully enjoy the bountiful blessing that God
gives to his humblest creatures.

It is far more noble to improve each hour in culti-
vating the mind, and attuning it to the glory of the
Creator. For this end it matters not so much whether
we spend our time in study or toil; the thoughts of the

TJUAL8 OF LIFE.

511

mind should go out and reach alter the higher good.
In this manner we may improve ourselves till our
thoughts come to be sweet companions that shall lead
us along the path of virtue. Thus we may grow bet-
ter within, whilst the cares of life, the crosses and
losses and disappointments lose their sharp thorns, and
the journey of life be made comparatively pleasant
and happy.

Much material good must be resigned if we would
attain to the highest degree of moral excellence, and
many spiritual joys must be foregone if we resolve at
all risks to win great material advantages. To strive
for a high professional position, and yet expect to have
all the delights of leisure; to labor for vast riches, and
yet to ask for freedom from anxiety and care, and all
the happiness which flows from a contented mind: to
indulge in sensual gratification, and yet demand health,
strength, and vigor; to live for self, and yet to look for
the joys that spring from a virtuous and self-denying
life, is to ask for impossibilities.

God knows what keys in the human soul to touch in
order to draw out its sweeter and most perfect harmo-
nies. They may be the minor strains of sadness and
sorrow ; they may be the loftier notes of joy and
gladness. God knows where the melodies of our
natures are, and what discipline will bring them forth.
Some with plaintive tongues must walk in lowly vales
of life's weary way ; others, in loftier hymns, sing
i of nothing but joy, as they tread the mountain-tops
of life; but they all unite without discord or jar as the
ascending anthem of loving and believing hearts finds
its way into the chorus of the redeemed heaven.

512

SICKNESS.

itkmzm.

Sickness brings a share of blessings with it. What
stores of human love and sympathy it reveals. What
constant affectionate care is ours. What kindly greet-
ings from friends and associates. This very loosening
of our hold upon life calls out such wealth of human
sympatlry that life seems richer than before. Then it-
teaches humility. Our absence is scarcely felt or
noticed. From the noisy, wrestling world without we
are separated completely, as if the moss was on our
tombstones; yet our place is filled and all moves on
without us. So we learn that when at last we shall
sink forever beneath the waves of the sea of life, there
will be but one ripple and the current will move steadily
on. On the sick-bed the sober truth comes home with
startling emphasis:

"The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom."

We cannot too soon convince ourselves how easily
we may be dispensed with in the world. What im
portant personages we imagine ourselves to be! We
think that we alone are the life of the circle in which
we move; in our absence we fancy that life, existence
and breath will come to a general pause ; and alas t the
gap which we leave is scarcely perceptible, so quickly
is it filled again; na}/, it is often but the place, if not

SICKNESS.

513

for something better, at least for something more
agreeable.

When sickness has drawn a vail over the gayety of
our hearts, or adversity eclipsed the splendor of our
outward circumstances; when some intervening cloud
has darkened the pleasing scenes of life, or disappoint-
ments opened our eyes; then vice loses her fallacious
allurements and the world appears as an empty, delusive
cheat; then Jesus and the Gospel beam forth with inim-
itable luster, and Christian virtue gains loveliness from
such lowering providences, and treads the shades with
more than mortal charms. May this reconcile me, and
all the sons of sorrow, to our appointed share of suffer-
ings. If tribulations tend to refine the soul and prepare
it for glory, welcome distress, or whatever our peevish
passions may miscall calamities. These are not judg-
ments or marks of displeasure to God's children, but
necessary and salutary chastisements, as well as tokens
of his parental concern for our spiritual and eternal
welfare. Afflictions should, therefore, sit easy upon usT
since they increase our knowledge and humility, pro-
mote our faith and love, and work out for us a far more
exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

Sickness scours us of our rust, and however the
wicked, like trees in the wilderness, grow without
culture, yet the saints, like trees in the garden, must be
pruned to be made fruitful, and sickness does this. God
y will prune his people, but not hew them down; the
right hand of his mercy knows what the left hand of
his severity is doing. There is as much difference
between the sufferings of the saints and those of the
33

514

ungodly, as between the cords with which an execu-
tioner pinions a condemned malefactor, and the band-
ages wherewith a tender surgeon binds his patient.

Sickness and disease are, in weak minds, the sources
of melancholy; but that which is painful to the body
may be profitable to the soul. Sickness, the mother of
modesty, puts us in mind of our mortality, and while
we drive on heedlessly in the full career of worldly
pomp and jollity, kindly pulls us by the ear, and brings
us to a proper sense of our duty.

A minister was recovering of a dangerous illness,
when one of his friends addressed him thus: "Sir,
though God seems to be bringing you up from the
gates of death, yet it will be a long time before you
will sufficiently retrieve your strength and regain vigor
enough of mind to preach as usual.'' The good man
answered: "You are mistaken, my friend; for this six
weeks' illness has taught me more divinity than all
my past studies and all my ten years' ministry put
together."

Dr. Payson being ill, a friend coming into his room
remarked, in a familiar way: "Well, I am sorry to
see you lying here on your back." "Do you know
what God puts us on our backs for?" asked Dr. Payson,
smiling. "No," was the answer. "In order that we
may look upward." His friend said to him, "I am not
come to condole but to rejoice with you, for it seems to
me that this is no time for mourning." "Well, I am
glad to hear that," was the reply, "it is not often that
I am addressed in such a way. The fact is I never had
less need of condolence, and yet everybody persists in

TEARS.

515

offering it; whereas, when I was prosperous and well,
and a successful preacher, and really needed condolence,
they flattered and congratulated me." Whom the Lord
loveth he chasteneth, and if we endure chastening, God
dealeth with us as with sons and daughters.

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the
mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more
eloquence than ten thousand tongues. They are the
messages of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition,
of unspeakable love. If there were wanting any argu-
ment to prove that man is not mortal, I would look for
it in the strong conclusive emotions of the breast, when
the soul has been deeply agitated; when the fountains
of feeling are rising, and when tears are gushing forth
in crystal streams. O, speak not harshly of the stricken
one — weeping in silence! Break noc the solemnity by
rude, laughter, or intrusive footsteps. Despise not
woman's tears — they are what make her an angel.
Scoff not if the stern heart of manhood is sometimes
melted to sympathy — they are what help to elevate
him above the brute. We love to see tears of affec-
tion. They are painful tokens, but still most holy.
There is pleasure in tears — an awful pleasure. II
there were none on earth to shed a tear for us, we

516

TEARS.

should be loth to live; and if no one might weep
over our grave, we could never die in peace.

Genuine tears are the involuntary and faithful ex-
pressions of the soul. The soul's sorrow or joy —
for joy weeps — guilt or innocence — for insulted vir-
tue has its tears — glistens in the pearly drop. Tears
relieve the soul; they are prevailing r :>rs; they win
triumphs which neither the infernal sword, nor divine
speech could ever achieve. A true tear is electric
to the true. A tear dropped in the silence of a sick
chamber often rings in heaven with a sound which
belongs not to earthly trumpets or bells.

Tears generally tremble in our eyes when we are
happy, and glisten like pearls, or dew-drops on the
flower cup; but when we first realize any overwhelm-
ing and unlooked for happiness, we gaze round with
a smile of bewildered ecstacy, and no tears tremble
in our eyes. The extremes of joy and sorrow are too
great, too deep for tears.

Tender, holy and sanctifying are human tears —
crystals of affection and pity — jewels of the soul. One
trickled on the cheek of a child. It had been crossed
in the fulfillment of some anticipation, and from a
grieved heart gushed up the sympathizing tear.
Another trembled from the eyelid of youth. He
had felt the touch of a bitter reproof, or of disap-
pointed love, and to soften his brain and sorrow
came the same beautiful tear.

O, doubt not that manhood — strong manhood —
was then solaced by tears. O, ye tears! what a mis-
sion have ye wrought in our sorrowing world! How

TEAMS.

517

tenderly worshiped on the altars of pity and sineere
love — how gloriously sanctified repentance and grief!
Down in the damp cell where the martyr rattles his
chains; in the dungeon where the patriot waits for
the block — ye have performed, O tears! the same
blessed work. Even to joy ye have been a balm of
oil — a refiner's fire. When the Macedonian passed
the pillar of Hercules, he was conquered by tears —
the same tears that sprung but now, like dew-drops,
from the lashes of yon blue-eyed child.

For what different ends, and yet unchanged, have
ye wrought. Every moment mellowing and calming
some sad, worn heart — aye, every day doing some
mission for each of our souls. Ye have gushed over
battle-fields and over festive halls; around the bier and
the board; and deeper, holier, have been our loves and
our friendliness with each return of your hallowed
feet — aye, feet! for tears have feet, and they come
treading up the soul like so many angels, offering sac-
rifices through our eyes. Repress them not, child —
they are a purifying vent to thy young heart. Repress
them not, O youth — they are good and holy for thee.
Repress them not, mother — for unto thee God has
given them to be a comforter in the lone and bitter
hour. And thou, manhood, quench not the fountain
whose upheaving is the most beautiful manifestation
of thy spiritual life. Tears, beautiful, blessed tears, be
ever with every reader — with us all; our token when
we sigh for the absent, or weep for the lost — a sacred
witness that our regrets and sorrows are sincere.

It is a striking fact that the dying never weep. The

518

SORROW.

sobbing, the heart-breaking agony 01 the circle of
friends around the death-bed, call forth no responsive
tears from the dying. Is it because he is insensible,
and stiff in the chill of dissolution? That cannot be,
for he asks for his father's hand, as if to gain strength
in the mortal struggle, and leans on the breast of his
mother, sister or brother, in still conscious affection.
Just before expiring, he calls the loved ones, and with
quivering lips says: "Kiss me," showing that the love
which he has borne in his heart is still fresh and warm.
It must be because the dying have reached a point too
deep for earthly sorrows, too transcendent for weeping.
They are face to face with higher and holier things,
with the Father in Heaven and His angels. There is
no weeping in that blessed abode to which the dying
man is hastening.

Give Sorrow words : the grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o'erfraught Heart, and bids it break.

— Shakespeare.

He who tastes only the bitter in the cup of life, who
looks only at the clouds which lower in one quarter of
the heavens, while the sun is shining cheerily in another,
who persists in pricking and scratching himself with
the thorn, and refuses to enjoy the fragrance of the
rose is an ingrate to God and a torment to himself

SORROW.

519

The record of human life is far more melancholy than
its course; the hours of quiet enjoyment are not noted;
the thousand graces and happiness of social life, the
loveliness of nature meeting us at every step, the buoy-
ancy of spirit resulting from health and pure air, the
bright sun, the starry firmament — all that cheers man
on his road through his probationary state, that warms
the heart and makes life pleasant — is omitted in the
narrative, which can only deal with facts; and we read
of disappointment, and sickness, and death, and exclaim,
"Why is man born to sorrow?" He is not so.

Sorrows are only tempest clouds : when afar off, they
look black, but when above us scarcely gray. Sorrow
is the night of the mind. What would be a day with-
out its night? The day reveals one sun only; the night
brings to light the whole of the universe. The analogy
is complete. Sorrow is the firmament of thought and
the school of intelligence. Men that are wise, as the
bees draw honey from the thyme, which is a most unsa-
vory and dry herb, extract something that is convenient
and useful even from the most bitter afflictions.

Great undertakings require the Christian's faith to
endure the deep and overwhelming experiences of
human sorrow without relinquishing their cherished
life work. The world in its bitterest forms of oppres-
sion spent itself upon Tasso, Dante, and Milton, in vain.
Redeemed, exalted, purified, they came forth from the
abyss of anguish, and sung to their fellows a song
which those who have never suffered, could never
utter. Alas! how many richly freighted souls have
sunk in the angry billows that came rushing in their

520

SORROW.

furious strength only to bend beneath these master-
spirits and bear them up to immortality. Sweetest
of all songs are the Psalms in the night. David sang
with the most touching tenderness when in the gloom
of deepest affliction. The heart may wail a miserere
over its dead or its dying, but even that will be sadly
sweet, and will have a hope in it. The saddest song is
better than none, because it is a song.

Sorrow is one of God's own angels in the land. Her
pruning-knife may not spare the tender buds of hope
that make glad the garden of the soul, but her fingers
sow the seeds of a quick sympathy with the woes of a
common humanity, which, springing into leaf, and bud,
and blossom, send perfume and beauty into the waste
places of lonely lives, and permeate with fragrant
incense the soil that gave them birth.

The simplest and most obvious use of sorrow is to
remind us of God. It would seem that a certain shock
is needed to bring us in contact with reality. We are
not conscious of breathing till obstruction makes it felt.
We are not aware of the possession of a heart till some
disease, some sudden joy or sorrow, rouses it into extra-
ordinary action. And we are not conscious of the
mighty cravings of our half divine humanity; we are
not aware of the God within us till some chasm yawns
which must be filled, or till the rending asunder of our
affections forces us to become fearfully conscious of a
need.

To mourn without measure, is folly ; not to mourn at
all, is insensibility. God says to the fruit tree, bloom
and bear; and to the human heart, bear and bloom —

SORROW.

521

the souPs great blossoming is the flower of suffering.
As .the sun converts clouds into a glorious drapery,
tiring them with gorgeous hues, and draping the whole
horizon with its glorious costume, a'nd writing victory
in fiery colors along the vanquished front of every
cloud, so sometimes a radiant heart lets forth its hope
upon its sorrow and all the blackness flies, and troubles
that trooped to appal seem to crowd around as a tri-
umphal procession following the steps of a victor.

There are people who think that to be grim is to be
good, and that a thought, to be really wholesome, must
necessarily be shaped like a coffin. They seem to think
that black is the color of heaven, and that the more
they can make their faces look like midnight, the holier
they are.

The days of darkness come, and they are many, but
our eye takes in only the first. One wave hides another,
and the effort to encounter the foremost withdraws our
thought from evils which are pressing on. If we could
see them all at once we might lie down, like Elijah,
under the juniper tree, and say, "It is enough — let me
not live ! " But patience attains her perfect work while
trials unfold. The capacity of sorrow belongs to our
grandeur; and the loftiest of our race are those who
have had the profoundest grief, because they have had
the profoundest sympathies.

Sorrow comes soon enough without despondency; it
does a man no good to carry around a lightning-rod to
attract trouble. When a gloom falls upon us, it may
be we have entered into the cloud that will give its
gentle showers to refresh and strengthen us. Heavy

522

SORROW.

burdens of sorrow seem like a stone hung round our
neck, yet they are often only like the stone used by
pearl divers, which enables them to reach the prize and

rise enriched.

Without suffering there could be no fortitude, no-
courage, or forbearance. The beauty and grandeur of
the starry heavens are only to be seen when set against
the brow of night; so sorrow often reveals to us our
Father, whom the sunlight of prosperity hides.

Woman's is a fixed, a secluded and a meditative life.
She is the companion of her own thoughts and feelings,
and if they are turned to ministers of sorrow, where
shall she look for consolation? Her lot is to be wooed
and won, and if unhappy in her love, her heart is like
some fortress that has been captured, and sacked, and
abandoned, and left desolate.

How many bright eyes grow dim — how many soft
cheeks grow pale — how many lovely forms fade away
into the tomb, and none can tell the cause that blighted
their loveliness ! As the dove will clasp its wings to its
side, and cover and conceal the arrow that is preying
on its vitals, so it is the nature of woman to hide from
the world the pangs of wounded affection. The love
of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even
when fortunate she scarcely breathes it to herself; but
when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her
bosom, and there lets it brood and cower among the
ruins of her peace. With her the desire of the heart
has failed. The great charm of existence is at an end.
She neglects all the cheerful exercises which gladden
the spirits, quicken the pulses, and send the tide of life

SORROW.

523

in healthful currents through the veins. Her rest is-
broken — the sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by
melancholy dreams — "dry sorrow drinks her blood,"
until her feeble frame sinks under the slightest external
injury. Look for her after a little while, and you will
find friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and
wondering that one who but lately glowed with all the
radiance of health and beauty, should be so speedily
brought down to "darkness and the worm." You will
be told of some wintry chill, some casual indisposition
that laid her low; but no one knows of the mental
malady that previously sapped her strength and made
her so easy a prey to the spoiler.

There are sorrows too sacred to be babbled to the
world, and there may be loves which one would forbear
to whisper even to a friend. Real sorrow is not clam-
orous. It seeks to shun every eye, and breathes in
solitude and silence the sighs that come from the heart.
Every heart has its secret sorrow, which the world
knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he-
is only sad. Give not thy mind to heaviness; the glad-
ness of the heart is the life of man, and joy fulness of a
man prolongeth his days. Remove sorrow far from
' thee, for sorrow hath killed many, and there is no
profit therein; and carefulness bringeth age before the-
time.

We are inclined to th:nk that the causes of our
sorrows are sent to us from above; often we weep, we
groan in our spirits, and we murmur against God; but
he leaves us to our sorrow, and we are saved; our
present grief saves us from an eternal sorrow. It

-524

SORROW.

would be well, however, if we attempted to trace the
•cause of them; we should probably find their origin in
some region of the heart which we never had well
explored, or in which we had secretly deposited our
worst indulgences. The clouds that intercept the
heavens from us, come not from the heavens, but from
the earth. Excess of sorrow is as foolish as profuse
laughter. Loud mirth, or immoderate sorrow, inequal-
ity of behavior, either in prosperity or adversity, are
.alike ungraceful in a man that is born to die. Some
are refined, like gold, in the furnace; others, like chaff,
.are consumed in it. Sorrow, when it is excessive,
takes away fervor from piety, vigor from action, health
from body, light from reason, and repose from the
conscience.

Those who work hard seldom yield themselves
entirely up to fancied or real sorrow. When grief sits
down, folds its hands, and mournfully feeds upon its
own tears, weaving the dim shadows, that a little
exertion might sweep away into a funeral pall, the
strong spirit is shorn of its might, and sorrow becomes
our master. When troubles flow upon you, dark and
heavy, toil not with the waves; wrestle not with the
torrent ; rather seek, by occupation, to divert the dark
waters that threaten to overwhelm you, into a thou-
sand channels which the duties of life always present.
Before you dream of it, those waters will fertilize the
present, and give birth to fresh flowers that may
brighten the future — flowers that will become pure
and holy, in the sunshine which penetrates to the path
-of dut}^, in spite of every obstacle. Grief, after all, is

SORROW.

525

but a selfish feeling; and most selfish is the man who
yields himself to the indulgence of any passion which
brings no joy to his fellow man.

They are true kings and qjeens, heroes and heroines,
who, folding a pall of tenderest memory over the faces
of their own lost hopes and perished loves, go with
unfaltering courage, to grapple with the future, to
strengthen the weak, to comfort the weary, to hang
sweet pictures of faith and trust in the silent galleries
of sunless lives, and to point the desolate, whose paths
wind ever among shadows and over rocks where never
the green moss grows, to the golden heights of the
hereafter, where the palms of victory wave.

Difficulties are things that show what men are. In
case of any difficulty, remember that God, like a gym-
nastic trainer, has pitted you against a rough antago-
nist. For what end? That you may be an Olympic
conquerer, and this cannot be without toil. He that
has great affliction is made of sterner stuff than most
men. God seems to have selected him, like second
growth timber, for important work. It is not every
one that can be trusted to suffer greatly. God has
confidence in him to the extent of the affliction.

Causeless depression is not to be reasoned with, nor
can David's harp charm it away, by sweet discours-
ings. As well fight with the mist as with this shape-
less, undefinable, yet all-beclouding hopelessness. If
those who laugh at such melancholy did but feel the
grief of it, for one hour, their laughter would be
sobered into compassion. Resolution might, perhaps,

£>26

SORROWING FOR THE BEAD.

shake it off, but where are we to find the resolution,
when the whole man is unstrung?

It is a poor relief for sorrow to fly to the distractions
of the world; as well might a lost and wearied bird,
suspended over the abyss of the tempestuous ocean,
seek a resting place on its heaving waves, as the child
of trouble seek a place of repose amid the bustling
cares and intoxicating pleasures of earth and time.
Christ is a refuge and "a very present help in trouble."

Our friends may die and leave our hearts and homes
desolate for a time; we cannot prevent it, nor would it
be best if we could. Sorrow has its Useful lessons
when it is legitimate, and death is the gate that opens
out of earth toward the house "eternal in the heavens."
If we lose them, heaven gains them. If we mourn,
they rejoice. If we hang our harps on the willows,
they tune theirs in the eternal orchestra above, rejoicing
that we shall soon be with them. Shall we not drown
our sorrow in the flood of light let through the rent
vail of the skies which Jesus entered, and, to cure our
loneliness, gather to us other friends to walk life's way,
knowing that every step brings us nearer the departed,
and their sweet, eternal home, which death never
enters, and where partings are never known? We

SORROWING FOR THE DEAD.

527

may still love the departed. They are ours as ever,
and we are theirs. The ties that unite us are not
broken. They are too strong for death's stroke. They
are made for the joys of eternal friendship. Other
friendships on earth will not disturb these bonds that
link with dear ones on high. Nor will our duties below
interfere with the sacredness of our relations with them.
They wish not to see us in sorrow. They doubtless
sympathize with us, and could we hear their sweet
voices, they would tell us to dry our tears and bind
ourselves to other friends, and joyfully perform all
duties on earth till our time to ascend shall come.

"The sorrow for the dead," says Irving, "is the only
sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every
other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to
forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep
open ; this affliction we cherish and brood over in
solitude.

"Where is the mother who would willingly forget
the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms,
though every recollection is a pang? Where is the
child that would willingly forget the most tender of
parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who,
even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over
whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is
closing upon the remains of her he most loved, when
he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of
its portal, would accept of consolation that must be
bought by forgetfulness ?

"No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the
noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has

528

SORROWING FOR THE BEAD.

likewise its delights; and when the overwhelming burst
of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection,
when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony-
over the ruins of all that we most loved is softened
away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the
days of its loveliness, who would root out such a sorrow
from the heart?

"Though it may sometimes throw a passing cloud
over the bright hour of gayety, or spread a deeper sad-
ness over the hour of gloom, yet who would exchange
it even for the song of pleasure or the burst of revelry?
No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song.
There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn
even from the charms of the living.

"Oh, the grave! the grave! It buries every error,
covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment.
From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets
and tender recollections. Who can look upon the grave
even of an enemy and not feel a compunctious throb
that he should ever have warred with the poor handful
of earth that lies mouldering before him?

"But the grave of those we loved, what a place for
meditation! There it is that we call up in long review
the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the
thousand endearments lavished upon us almost un-
heeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy. There it
is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful
tenderness of the parting scene.

" The bed of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noise-
less attendants, its mute, watchful assiduities, the last
testimonies of expiring love, the feeble, fluttering, thrill-

SORROW I NG FOR THE BEAD.

52S-

ing, oh, how thrilling! pressure of the hand. The last
fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from
the threshold of existence. The faint, faltering accents
struggling in death to give one more assurance of affec-
tion. Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate !
There settle the account with thy conscience for
every past benefit unrequited, every past endear-
ment unregarded, of that departed being who can
never — never — never return to be soothed by thy
contrition!

" If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to
the soul or a furrow to the silver brow of an affectionate
parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the
fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy
arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy
truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in
thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously
confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast given
one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies
cold and still beneath thy feet, then be sure that every
unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle
action, will come thronging back upon thy memory,
and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that
thou wiit lie down sorrowing and repentant on the
grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the
unavailing tear, more deep, more bitter, because
unheard and unavailing.

"Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the
beauties of nature about the grave; console thy broken
spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes
of regret; but take warning by the bitterness of this
34

530

ADVERSITY.

thy contrite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be
more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy
duties to the living."

The good are better made by ill : —
As odors crush'd are sweeter still !

— Rogers.

The harp holds in its wires the possibilities of noblest
chords; yet, if they be not struck, they must hang dull
and useless. So the mind is vested with a hundred
powers, that must be smitten by a heavy hand to prove
themselves the offspring of divinity.

Welcome, then, adversity! Thy hand is cold and
hard, but it is the hand of a friena ! Thy voice is stern
and harsh, but it is the voice of a friend! There is
something sublime in the resolute, fixed purpose of
suffering without complaining, which makes disappoint-
ment often better than success.

As full ears load and lay corn, so does too much
fortune bend and break the mind. It deserves to be
considered, too, as another advantage, that affliction
moves pity, and reconciles our very enemies; but pros-
perity provokes envy, and loses us our very friends
Again, adversity is a desolate and abandoned state;
the generality of people are like those infamous ani-
mals that live only upon plenty and rapine; and as rats

ADVERSITY.

531

and mice forsake a tottering house, so do these the
falling man. He that has never known adversity is
but half acquainted with others or with himself. Con-
stant success shows us but one side of the world; for
as it surrounds us with friends who tell us only of our
merits, so it silences those enemies from whom only we
can learn our defects.

Adversity, sage, useful guest,
Severe instructor, but the best;
It is from thee alone we know
Justly to value things below.

Adversity exasperates fools, dejects cowards, draws
out the faculties of the wise and industrious, puts the
modest to the necessity of trying their skill, awes the
opulent, and makes the idle industrious. A smooth
sea never made a skillful mariner, neither do uninter-
rupted prosperity and success qualify men for useful-
ness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like
those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the
invention, prudence, skill, and fortitude of the voyager.
The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds
to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose
and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and
security.

It is good for man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
Oaks are made hard by strong discipline. As a glad-
iator trained the body, so must we train the mind to
self-sacrifice, ato endure all things,'7 to meet and over-
come difficulty and danger. We must take the rough
and thorny roads as well as the smooth and pleasant;

532

ADVERSITY.

and a portion at least of our daily duty must be hard
and disagreeable; for the mind cannot be kept strong
and healthy in perpetual sunshine only, and the most
dangerous of all states is that of constantly recurring
pleasure, ease and prosperity.

It seems as if man were like the earth. It cannot
bask forever in sunshine. The snows of winter and
frosts must come and work in the ground and mellow
it to make them fruitful. A man upon whom continu-
ous sunshine falls is like the earth in August ; he
becomes parched and dry, and hard and close-grained.
To some men the winter and spring come when they
are young; others are born in summer and are only
made fit to die by a winter of sorrow coming to them
when they are middle-aged or old.

It is not the nursling of wealth or fortune who has
been dandled into manhood on the lap of prosperity,
that carries away the world's honors, or wins its
mightiest influence ; but it is rather the man whose
earlier years were cheered by scarcely a single proffer
of aid, or smile of approbation, and who has drawn
from adversity the elements of greatness. The "talent"
which prosperity "folded in a napkin," the rough hand
of adversity shook out.

The men who stand boldly for the defense of the
truth, in the midst of the flood of errors that surround
them, are not the gentlemen of lily fingers who have
been rocked in the cradle of indulgence and caressed
in the lap of luxury; but they are men whom necessity
has called from the shade of retirement to contend
under the scorching rays of the sun, with the scern

ADVERSITY.

533

realities of life with all its vicissitudes. It is good for
a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. The gem
cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected
without adversity.

The patient conquest of difficulties which rise in the
regular and legitimate channels of business and enter-
prise, is not only essential in securing the successes
which you seek, but it is essential to the preparation
of your mind requisite for the enjoyment of your suc-
cesses and for retaining them when gained.

Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a
man hardly knows whether he is honest or not. Night
brings out the stars as adversity shows us truths; we
never see the stars till we can see little or naught else;
and thus it is with truth. When you feel inclined to
cry, just change your mind and laugh. Nothing dries
sooner than tears.

Adversity certainly has its uses, and very valuable
ones too. It has been truly remarked that many a
man, in losing his fortune, has found himself and
ruined into salvation. Adversity flattereth no man.
Oft from apparent ills our blessings rise. Who never
fasts, no banquet e'er enjoys. In prosperity, be humble;
in adversity, cheerful. If you have the blues, go and
see the poorest and sickest families within your knowl-
edge. To bear the sharp afflictions of life like men,
we should also feel them like men. The darker the
setting, the brighter the diamond. Probably we might
often become reconciled to what we consider a hard
lot by comparing ourselves with the many who want
what we possess rather than with the few who possess

534

DEBT.

what we want. He is happy vvhose circumstances suit
his temper; but he is happier who can suit his temper
to his circumstances. There is a virtue in keeping up
appearances. He is a fool that grumbles at every
little mischance. Put the best foot forward, is an old
and good maxim. Do n't run about and tell acquaint-
ances that you have been unfortunate; people donot
like to have unfortunate men for acquaintances. If the
storm of adversity whistles around you, whistle as
bravely yourself; perhaps the two whistles may make
melody.

But, while you are generous, see to it that you are
also just. Do not give away what does not belong to
you. Let me warn you, on account of its moral bear-
ings, against debt. Nothing more effectually robs one
of his best energies, takes the bloom, from his cheek
and peace from his pillow, than pecuniary obligations.
And that is not all, nor the worst; debt is a foe to a
man's honesty. Avoid all meanness; but shun as a
pestilence the habit of running thoughtlessly into debt.
Let your expenses be always short of your income.

"Of what a hideous progeny of ill," says Douglas
Jerrold, "is debt the father! What meanness, what
invasions of self-respect, what cares, what double-deal-
ing! How in due season, it will carve the frank, cpen

DEBT.

535

face into wrinkles; how like a knife it will stab the
honest heart. And then its transformations. How it
has been known to change a goodly face into a mask
of brass; how with the evil custom of debt, has the
true man become a callous trickster! A freedom from
debt, and what nourishing sweetness may be found in
cold water; what toothsomeness in a dry crust; what
ambrosial nourishment in a hard egg! Be* sure of it,
he who dines out of debt, though his meal be a biscuit
and an onion, dines in 'The Apollo.' And then, for
raiment, what warmth in a threadbare coat, if the
tailor's receipt be in your pocket! what Tyrian purple
in the faded waistcoat, the vest not owed for; how
glossy the well worn hat, if it covers not the aching
head of a debtor! Next the home sweets, the out-
door recreation of the free man. The street door falls
not a knell on his heart; the foot of the staircase,
though he lives on the third pair, sends no spasms
through his anatomy; at the rap of his door he can
crow 'come in,' and his pulse still beats healthfully, his
heart sinks not in his bowels. See him abroad! How
he returns look for look with any passenger; how he
saunters; now meeting an acquaintance, he stands and
gossips, but then this man knows no debt; debt that
casts a drug in the richest wine; that makes the food
of the gods unwholesome, indigestible; that sprinkles
the banquets of a Lucullus with ashes, and drops soot
in the soup of an emperor; debt that like the moth,
makes valueless furs and velvets, enclosing the wearer
in a festering prison, (the shirt of Nessus was a shirt
not paid for;) debt that writes upon frescoed halls the

536

DEBT.

handwriting of the attorney; that puts a voice of
terror in the knocker; that makes the heart quake
at the haunted fireside; debt, the invisible demon
that walks abroad with a man, now quickening his
steps, now making him look on all sides like a hunted
beast, and now bringing to his face the ashy hue of
death as the unconscious passenger looks glancingly
upon him! Poverty is a bitter draught, yet may,
and sometimes can, with advantage, be gulped down.
Though the drinker makes wry faces, there may,
after all, be a wholesome goodness in the cup. But
debt, however courteously it may be offered, is the
cup of Syren; and the wine, spiced and delicious
though it be, is poison. The man out of debt, though
with a flaw in his jerkin, a crack in his shoe leather,
and a hole in his hat, is still the son of liberty, free as
the singing lark above him; but the debtor, although
clothed in the utmost bravery, what is he but a serf
out upon a holiday — a slave to be reclaimed at any
instant by his owner, the creditor? My son, if poor,
see Hyson in the running spring; see thy mouth water
at a last week's roll; think a threadbare coat the only
wear; and acknowledge a whitewashed garret the
fittest housing place for a gentleman; do this, and
flee debt. So shall thy heart be at rest and the
sheriff confounded."

Somebody truly says that one debt begets another.
If a man owes you a dollar, he is sure to owe you a
grudge, too, and he is generally more ready to pay
interest on the latter than on the former. Contracting
debts is not unlike the man who goes to sea without a

DEBT.

537

compass — he may steer clear of rocks, sandbars, a
lee shore, and breakers, but the chances are greatly
against him; and, if he runs foul of either, ten to one
he is lost. The present indiscriminate credit system is
a labyrinth, the entrance is easy, but how to get out —
that's the question. It is an endless chain, and if one
link breaks in a particular community, it degrades the
whole. The concussion may break many more, create
a panic, and the chain become useless. If this mis-
fortune would cure the evil, it would be a blessing in
disguise; but so deeply rooted is this system among us,
that no sooner is one chain destroyed than another is
manufactured ; an increasing weight is put upon it ;
presently some of its links snap, another concussion is
produced, and creates a new panic ; car after car
rushes down the inclined plane of bankruptcy, increas*
ing trie mass of broken fragments and general ruin, all
so commingled that a Philadelphia lawyer, aided by
constables and sheriffs, can bring but little order out
of the confusion. At the outset, especially among
merchants, a ruinous tax is imposed by this s}"stem
upon the vendor and vendee. The seDer, in addition
to a fair profit for cash in hand, adds a larger per cent,
to meet losses from bad debts, but which often falls
far short of the mark. Each purchaser, who is ulti-
mately able to pay, bears the proportionate burden
of this tax, and both contribute large sums to indulge
those who cannot, and what is worse, those wha never
intend to pay ; thus encouraging fraud. On *^ery
hand we see people living on credit, putting off pay
day to the last, making in the end some desperate

538

FAILURE.

effort, either by begging or borrowing, to scrape the
money together, and then struggling on again, with
the canker of care eating at their heart, to the inevi-
table goal of bankruptcy. If people would only make
a push at the beginning, instead of the end, they would
save themselves all this misery. The great secret
of being solvent, and well-to-do, and comfortable, is to
get ahead of your expenses. Eat and drink this month
what you earned last month — -not what you are going
to earn next month. There are, no doubt, many per-
sons so unfortunately situated that they can never
accomplish this. No man can to a certainty guard
against ill health; no man can insure himself a well-
conducted, helpful family, or a permanent income.
Friendships are broken over debts; forgeries and mur-
ders are committed on their account ; and, however
considered, they are a source of cost and annoyance —
and that continually. They break in everywhere upon
the harmonious relations of men ; they render men
servile or tyrannous, as they chance to be debtors or
creditors ; they blunt sensitiveness to personal inde-
pendence, and, in no respect that we can fathom, do
they advance the general well-being.

In every community there are men who are deter-
mined not to work if work can be shirked. Without

FAILURE.

539

avowing this determination to themselves, or reflecting
that they are fighting against a law of nature, they
begin life with a resolution to enjoy all the good things
that are accumulated by the labor of man, without
contributing their own share of labor to the common
stock. Hence the endless schemes for getting rich in
a day — for reaching the goal of wealth by a few
gigantic bounds, instead of by slow and plodding steps.
It matters not in what such men deal, whether in
oroide watches or in watered stock; whether they
make "corners" in wheat or in gold; whether they
gamble in oats or at roulette; whether they steal a
railway or a man's money by " gift-concerts " — the
principle is in all cases the same, namely, to obtain
something for nothing, to get values without parting
with anything in exchange. Everybody knows the
history of such men, the vicissitudes they experience —
vicissitudes rendering the millionaire of to-day a beg-
gar to-morrow.

Firms are constantly changing. Splendid mansions
change hands suddenly. A brilliant party is held in
an up-town house, the sidewalk is carpeted, and the
papers are full of the brilliant reception. The next
season the house will be dismantled, and a family,
"going into the country," or "to Europe," will offer
their imported furniture to the public under the ham-
mer. A brilliant equipage is seen in the parks in the
early part of the season, holding gaily dressed ladies
and some successful speculators. Before the season
closes some government officer or sporting man will
drive that team on his own account, while the gay

540

FAILURE.

party that called the outfit their own in the eariy part
of the season have passed away forever. This grows
out of the manner in which business is done. There
is no thrift, no forecast, no thought for the morrow.
A man who makes fifty thousand dollars, instead of
settling half of it on his wife and children, throws the
whole into a speculation with the expectation of making
it a hundred thousand. A successful dry goods jobber,
wrho has a balance of seventy-five thousand dollars to
his credit in the bank, instead of holding it for a wet
day or a tight time, goes into a little stock speculation
and hopes to make a fortune at a strike. Men who
have a good season launch out into extravagancies and
luxuries, and these, with the gambling mania, invariably
carry people under.

A gentleman, who had a very successful trade, built
him an extraordinary country seat in Westchester
county, which was the wonder of the age. His house
was more costly than the palace of the Duke of Buc-
cleuch. His estate comprised several acres laid out in
the most expensive manner, and the whole was encir-
cled with gas lights, several hundred in number, which
were lit every evening. As might have been expected,
with the first reverse, (and it comes sooner or later to
all,) the merchant was crushed, and as he thought dis-
graced; and he was soon carried to his sepulchre, the
wife obliged to leave her luxurious home, and by the
kindness of creditors was allowed, with her children,
to find temporary refuge in the coachman's loft in her
stable.

Americans are always in a hurry when they have an

FAILURE. 541

object to accomplish; but if there is any vocation or
pursuit in which gradual, slow-coach processes are
scouted with peculiar de 'station, it is that of acquir-
ing riches. Especially is this true at the present day,
when fortunes are continually changing hands, and
men are so often, by a lucky turn of the wheel, lifted
from the lowest depths of poverty to the loftiest pin-
nacle of wealth and affluence. Exceptional persons
there are, who are content with slow gains — willing
to accumulate riches by adding penny to penny, dollar
to dollar; but the mass of business men are too apt
to despise such a tedious, laborious ascent of the steep
of fortune, and to rush headlong into schemes for the
sudden acquisition of wealth. Hence honorable labor
is too often despised; a man of parts is expected to be
above hard work.

There is, with a great majority of men, a want of
constancy in whatever plans they undertake. They
toil as though they doubted that life had earnest and
decided pathways; as though there was no compass
but the shifting winds, with each of which they must
change their course. Thus they beat about on the
ocean of time, but never cross it, to rest on delightful
islands or mainlands.

542

DESPAIR.

No calamity can produce such paralysis of the mind
as despair. It is the cap stone of the climax of human
anguish. The mental powers are frozen with indiffer-
ence, the heart becomes ossified with melancholy, the
soul is shrouded in a cloud of gloom. No words of
consolation, no cheerful repartee, can break the death-
like calm ; no love can warm the pent-up heart ; no
sunbeams dispel the dark clouds. Time may effect a
change ; death will break the monotony. We can
extend our kindness, but cannot relieve the victim.
We may trace the causes of this awful disease; God
only can effect a cure. We may speculate upon its
nature, but cannot feel its force until its iron hand is
laid upon us. We may call it weakness, but cannot
prove or demonstrate the proposition. We may call it
folly, but can point to no frivolity to sustain our
position. W e may call it madness, but can discover
no maniac actions. We may call it stubbornness, but
can see no exhibitions of indocility. We may call it
lunacy, but cannot perceive the incoherences of that
unfortunate condition. We can call it, properly, noth-
ing but dark, gloomy despair, an undefined and unde-
finable paralyzation of all the sensibilities that render a
man happy, and capable of imparting happiness to those
around him. It is a state of torpid dormacy, rather
than a mental derangement of the cerebral organs.

Me miserable ! which way shall I fly-
Infinite wrath, and infinite despair?

DESPAIR.

543

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell?
And in the lowest deep a lower deep
Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

— Milton.

It is induced by a false estimate of things, and of the
dispensations and government of the God of mercy.
Disappointments, losses, severe and continued afflic-
tions, sudden transition from wealth to poverty, the
death of dear friends, may cast a gloom over the mind
that does not correctly comprehend the great first
cause, and see the hand of God in every thing, and
produce a state of despair, because these things are
viewed in a false mirror. Fanaticism in religious
meetings has produced the most obstinate and melan-
choly cases of despair that have come under m'y own
observation. Intelligence, chastened by religion, are
the surest safeguards against this state of misery ;
ignorance, and vice are its greatest promoters. Despair
is the destruction of all hope, the deathless sting that
refines the torment of the finally impenetent and lost.
It is that undying worm, that unquenchable fire, so
graphically described in holy writ.

Remember this, that God always helps those that
help themselves, that he never forsakes those who are
good and true, and that he heareth even the young
Tc vens when they cry. Moreover,, remember too, that
come what may, we must never give up in life's battle,
but press onward to the end, always keeping in mind
the words — never despair.

Despair is the death of the soul. If we will sympa-

544 STEPPING STONES.

thize with God's system of salvation, there is no occa-
sion for despondency or a feeling of condemnation, as
we discover our defects from time to time; but, on the
other hand, of cheerful hopefulness, and confidence
of this very thing, that u He who hath begun a good
work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ"

Stepping stones are advantages, auxiliaries, powerT
etc., and these are attained in no other way than
through personal experiences. Our trials of life
strengthen us ; discouragements, disappointments, mis-
fortunes, failures, adversities, and calamities, are all
stepping stones for us; each successive victory raises
us higher in strength and power. It is through
trials that stout hearts are made. It is through
adversities that our patience and courage are increased.

Men are frequently like tea — the real strength and
goodness is not properly drawn out of them .till they
have been a short time in hot water. The ripest fruit
grows on the roughest wall. It is the small wheels of
the carriage that come in first. The man who holds
the ladder at the bottom is frequently of more service
than he who is stationed at the top of it. The turtle,
though brought in at a rear gate, takes the head of the
table. "Better to be the cat in the philanthropists
family than a mutton pie at a king's banquet."

STEPPING STONES.

545

He who bears adversity well gives the best evidence
that he will not be spoiled by prosperity. It has been
truly remarked that many a man, in losing his fortune,
has found himself. Adversity flattereth no man. Oft
from apparent ills our blessings rise. Who never fasts,
no banquet e'er enjoys. Adversity exasperates fools,
dejects cowards, draws out the faculties of the wise
and industrious, puts the modest to the necessity of
trying their skill, awes the opulent, and makes the idle
industrious. Many a promising reputation has been
destroyed by early success. It is far from being true,
in the progress of knowledge, that after ever}7 failure
we must recommence from the beginning. Every
failure is a step to success; every detection of what is
/ false directs us toward what is true ; every trial
exhausts some tempting form of error. Not only so,
but scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure; scarcely
any theory, the result of steady thought, is altogether
false; no tempting form of error is without some latent
charm derived from truth.

Doubtless a deeper feeling of individual responsi-
bility, and a better adaptation of talent to its fields of
labor, are necessary to bring about a better state of
society, and a better condition for the individual mem-
bers of it. But with the most careful adaptation of
talent and means to pursuits, no man can succeed, as a
general principle, who has not a fixed and resolute
purpose in his mind, and an unwavering faith that he
can carry that purpose out.

Man is born a hero, and it is only by darkness and
storms that heroism gains its greatest and best develop-
35

STEPPING STONES.

ment and illustration; then it kindles the black cloud
into a blaze of glory, and the storm bears it rapidly to
its destiny. Despair not, then, disappointment will be
realized. Mortifying failure may attend this effort and
that one; but only be honest and struggle on, and it
will all work well.

What though once supposed friends have disclaimed
and deserted you — fortune, the jade, deceived you —
and the stern tyrant, adversity, roughly asserted his
despotic power to trample you down? " While there's
life there's hope." Has detraction's busy tongue
assailed thy peace, and contumely's venomed shaft
poisoned thy happiness, by giving reputation its death
blow ; destroyed thy confidence in friendly promise,
and rendered thee suspicious of selfishness in the exhi-
bition of brotherly kindness ; or the tide of public
opinion well nigh overwhelmed you 'neath its angry
waves? Never despair. Yield not to the influence of
sadness, the blighting power of dejection, which sinks
you in degrading inaction, or drives you to seek relief
in some fatal vice, or to drown recollection in the
poisoning bowl. Arouse, and shake the oppressive
burden from overpowering thee. Quench the stings
of slander in the waters of Lethe; bury despondency
in oblivion; fling melancholy to the winds, and with
firm bearing and a stout heart push on to the attain-
ment of a higher goal. The open field for energetic
action is large, and the call for vigorous laborers
immensely exceed the supply. Much precious time is
squandered, valuable labor lost, mental activity stupi-
fied and deadened by vain regrets, useless repinings,

PRAYER.

547

and unavailing idleness. The appeal for volunteers in
the great battle of life, in exterminating ignorance and
error, and planting high on an everlasting foundation
the banner of intelligence and right, is directed to you,
would you but grant it audience. Let no cloud again
darken thy spirit, or weight of sadness oppress thy
heart. Arouse ambition's smouldering fires. The
laurel may e'en now be wreathed destined to grace
thy brow. Burst the trammels that impeed thy pro-
gress, and cling to hope. The world frowned darkly
upon all who have ever yet won fame's wreath, but on
they toiled. Place high thy standard, and with a firm
tread and fearless eye press steadily onward. Perse-
vere, and thou wilt surely reach it. Are there those
/ who have watched, unrewarded, through long sorrow-
ful years, for the dawning of a brighter morrow, when
the weary soul should calmly rest? Hope's bright
rays still illume their dark pathways, and cheerfully
yet they watch. Never despair! Faint not, though
thy task be heavy, and victory is thine. None should
despair; God can help them. None should presume;
God can cross them.

Prayer is an action of likeness to the Holy Ghost,
the spirit of gentleness and dove-like simplicity; an
imitation ■ of the holy Jesus, whose spirit is meek, up

548

PRAYER.

to the greatness of the biggest example; and a con-
formity to God, whose anger is always just, and
marches slowly, and is without transportation, and
often hindered, and never hasty, and is full of mercy.
Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our
thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of
meditation, the rest of our cares, and the calm of our
tempest; prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of un-
troubled thoughts; it is the daughter of charity, and
the sister of meekness; and he that prays to God with
an angry, that is, with a troubled and discomposed
spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate^
and sets up his closet in the out-quarters of an arrny^
and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in. Anger
is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer, and
therefore is contrary to that attention which presents
our prayers in a right line to God. For so have I seen
a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upward,
singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and
climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten
back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and
his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending
more at every breath of the tempest than it could
recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his
wings; till the little creature was forced to sit down
and pant, and stay till the storm was over; and then
it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing as
if it had learned music and motion from an angel, as
he passed sometimes through the air about his minis-
tries here below: so is the prayer of a good man:
When his affairs have required business, and his busi-

PRATER.

549

ness was matter of discipline, and his discipline was
to pass upon a sinning person, or had a design of
charity, his duty met with the infirmaries of a man,
and anger was its instrument, and the instrument
became stronger than the prime agent, and raised a
tempest, and overruled the man; and then his prayer
was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, and his
words went up toward a cloud, and his thoughts pulled
them back again, and made them without intention,
and the good man sighs for his infirmity, but must be
content to lose the prayer, and he must recover it
when his anger is removed, and his spirit is becalmed,
made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the
heart, of God; and then it ascends to heaven upon the
wings of the holy dove, and dwells with God, till it
returns, like the useful bee, laden with a blessing and
the dew of heaven.

God respecteth not the arithmetic of our prayers,
how many they are; nor the rhetoric of our prayers,
how neat they are; nor the geometry of our prayers,
how long they are; nor the music of our prayers, how
melodious they are; nor the logic of our pra}^ers, how
methodical they are — but the divinity of our prayers,
how heart-sprung they are. Not gifts, but graces,
prevail in prayer. Perfect prayers, without a spot or
blemish, though not one word be spoken, and no
phrases known to mankind be tampered with, always
pluck the heart out of the earth and move it softly
like a censer, to and fro, beneath the face of heaven.

Prayer is a constant source of invigoration to self-
discipline ; not the thoughtless praying, which is a thing

550

PRATER.

of custom, but that which is sincere, intense, watchfuL
Let a man ask himself whether he really would have
the thing he prays for ; let him think, while he is
praying for a spirit of forgiveness, whether, even at
that moment, he is disposed to give up the luxury of
anger. If not, what a horrible mockery it is! Do not
say you have no convenient place to pray in. Any
man can find a place private enough, if he is disposed.
Our Lord prayed on a mountain, Peter on the house-
top, Isaac in the field, Nathaniel under the fig-tree,.
Jonah in the whale's belly. Any place may become
a closet, an oratory, and a Bethel, and be to us the
presence of God.

To present a petition is one thing; to prosecute a
suit is another. Most prayers answer to the former;
but successful prayer corresponds to the latter. God's
people frequently lodge their petition in the court of
heaven, and there they let it lie. They do not press
their suit. They do not employ other means of fur-
thering it beyond the presenting of it. The whole of
prayer does not consist in taking hold of God. The
main matter is holding on. How many are induced
by the slightest appearance of repulse to let go, as
Jacob did not ! We have been struck with the manner
in which petitions are usually concluded — "And your
petitioners will ever pray." So "men ought always
pray (to God) and never faint." Payson says, "The
promise of God is not to the act, but to the habit of
prayer."

Though prayer should be the key of the day, and
the lock of the night, yet we hold it more needful in the

PRAT Eli.

551

morning, than when our bodies do take their repose.
For howsoever sleep be the image or shadow of
death — and when the shadow is so near, the sub-
stance cannot be far — yet a man at rest in his cham-
ber is like a sheep unpenned in the fold; subject only
to the unavoidable and more immediate hand of God:
whereas in the day, when he roves abroad in the open
and wide pastures, he is then exposed to many more
unthought-of accidents, that contingently and casually
occur in the way: retiredness is more safe than busi-
ness: who believes not a ship securer in the bay than
in the midst of the boiling ocean? Besides, the morn-
ing to the day, is as youth to the life of a man: if that
be begun well, commonly his age is virtuous: other-
wise, God accepts not the latter service, when his
enemy joys in the first dish. Why should God take
the dry bones, when the devil hath sucked the marrow
out?

Not a few, too, owe their escape from skepticism
and infidelity to its sacred influence. Said the noted
John Randolph, "I once took the French side in pol-
itics; and I should have been a French atheist, if it
had not been for one recollection; and that was the
memory of the time when my departed mother used
to take my little hands in hers, and cause me on my
knees to say, 'Our Father, who art in heaven.'"

"The parents pair their secret homage,
And offer up to heaven the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest,

And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,

For them and for their little ones provide."

552

THE BE IS A GOD.

There is a God ! The herbs of the valley, the
cedars of the mountain, bless him : the insect sports in
his beam ; the bird sings him in the foliage ; the
thunder proclaims him in the heavens ; the ocean
declares his immensity: man alone has said, tk There is
no God ! " Unite in thought at the same instant the
most beautiful objects in nature. Suppose that you see
at once all the hours of the day. and ail the seasons of
the year : a morning of spring, and a morning of
autumn ; a night bespangled with stars, and a night
darkened by clouds ; meadows enameled with flowers;
forests hoary with snow: fields gilded by the tints of
autumn; then alone you will have a just conception of
the universe ! While vou are gazing Qn that sui\
which is plunging into the vault of the west, another
observer admires him emerging from the gilded gates
of the east. By what inconceivable power does that
aged star, which is sinking, fatigued and burning, in
the shades of the evening, reappear at the same instant
fresh and humid with the rosy dew of the morning ?
At every hour of the day the glorious orb is at once
rising, resplendent as noon-day, and setting in the
west ; or rather, our senses deceive us, and there is,
properly speaking, no east or west, no north or south,
in the world.

Go out beneath the arched heavens, at night, and
say, if you can, "There is no God!" Pronounce that
dreadful blasphemy, and each star above you will

THERE IS A GOB.

553

reproach the unbroken darkness of your intellect ;
fevery voice that floats upon the night winds will bewail
your utter hopelessness and folly.

Is there no God ? Who, then, unrolled the blue
scroll, and threw upon its high frontispiece the legible
gleamings of immortality? Who fashioned this green
earth, with its perpetual rolling waters, and its wide
expanse of islands and of main ? Who settled the
foundations of the mountains ? Who paved the heavens
with clouds, and attuned, amid the clamor of storms,
the voice of thunders, and unchained the lightnings
that flash in their gloom?

Who gave to the eagle a safe eyrie where the tem-
pests dwell, and beat the strongest, and to the dove a
tranquil abode amid the forests that echo to the minis-
trelsy of her moan? Who made thee, O man ! with
thy perfected elegance of intellect and form ? Who
made the light pleasant to thee, and the darkness a
covering, and a herald to the first gorgeous flashes
of the morning ?

There is a God. All nature declares it in a language
too plain to be misapprehended. The great truth is
too legibly written over the face of the whole creation
to be easily mistaken. Thou canst behold it in the
tender blade just starting from the earth in the early
spring, or in the sturdy oak that has withstood the
blasts of fourscore winters. The purling rivulet, me-
andering through downy meads and verdant glens,
and Niagara's tremendous torrent, leaping over its
awful chasm, and rolling in majesty its broad sheet

554

THERE IS A GOB.

of waters onward to the ocean, unite in proclaiming —
"There is a God."

'Tis heard in the whispering breeze and in the howl-
ing storm; in the deep-toned thunder, and in the earth-
quake's shock; 'tis declared to us when the tempest
lowers; when the hurricane sweeps over the land;
when the winds moan around our dwellings, and die in
sullen murmurs on the plain, when the heavens, over-
cast with blackness, ever and anon are illuminated by
the lightning's glare.

Nor is the truth less solemnly impressed on our
minds in the universal hush and calm repose of nature,
when all is still as the soft breathings of an infant's
slumber. The vast ocean, when its broad expanse is
whitened with foam, and when its heaving waves roll
mountain on mountain high, or when the dark blue
of heaven's vault is reflected with beauty on its smooth
and tranquil bosom, confirms the declaration. The
twinkling star, shedding its flickering rays so far above
the reach of human ken, and the glorious sun in the
heavens — all — all declare there is a universal First
Cause.

And man, the proud lord of creation, so fearfully
and wonderfully made — each joint in its corresponding
socket — each muscle, tendon, and artery, performing
their allotted functions with all the precision of the
most perfect mechanism — and, surpassing all, possessed
of a soul capable of enjoying the most exquisite pleas-
ure, or of enduring the most excruciating pain, which
is endowed with immortal capacities, and is destined to

THE BIBLE.

555

live onward through the endless ages of eternity —
these all unite in one general proclamation of the
eternal truth — there is a Being, infinite in wisdom,
who reigns over all, undivided and supreme — the
fountain of all life, source of all light — from whom all
blessings flow, and in whom all happiness centers.

The Bible is not only the revealer of the unknown
God to man, but His grand interpreter as the God of
nature. In revealing God, it has given us the key that
unlocks the profoundest mysteries of creation, the clew
by which to thread the labyrinth of the universe, the
glass through which to look "from nature up to
nature's God.71

It is only when we stand and gaze upon nature,
with the Bible in our hands, and its idea of God in
our understandings, that nature is capable of rising to
her highest majesty, and kindling in our souls the
highest emotions of moral beauty and sublimity.
Without the all-pervading spiritual God of the Bible
in our thoughts, nature's sweetest music would lose
its charm, the universe its highest significance and
glory.

Go, and stand with your open Bible upon the Areo-
pagus of Athens, where Paul stood so long ago! In
thoughtful silence, look around upon the site of all

556

THE BIBLE.

that ancient greatness; look upward to those still
glorious skies of Greece, and what conceptions of
wisdom and power will all those memorable scenes
of nature and art convey to your mind, now, more
than they did to an ancient worshiper of Jupiter or
Apollo? They will tell of Him who made the worlds,
"by whom, and through whom, and tor whom, are all
things. " To you, that landscape of exceeding beauty,
so rich in the monuments of departed genius, with its
distant classic mountains, its deep blue sea, and its
bright bending skies, will be telling a tale of glory the
Grecian never learned; for it will speak to you no
more of its thirty thousand petty contending deities,
but of the one living and everlasting God.

Go, stand with David and Isaiah under the star-
spangled canopy of the night; and, as you look away
to the "range of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres
wheeling unshaken through the void immense," take
up the mighty questionings of inspiration!

Go, stand upon the heights at Niagara, and listen
in awe-struck silence to that boldest, most earnest,
and most eloquent of all nature's orators! And what
is Niagara, with its plunging waters and its mighty
roar, but the oracle of God, the whisper of His voice
who is revealed in the Bible as sitting above the
water-floods forever!

Who can stand amid scenes like these, with the
Bible in his hand, and not feel that if there is a moral
sublimity to be found on earth, it is in the Book of
God, it is in the thought of God ? For what are
all these outward, visible forms of grandeur but the

THE BIBLE.

557

expression and the utterance of that conception of
Deity which the Bible has created in our minds, and
which has now become the leading and largest thought
of all civilized nations?

The oldest reliable history is that given by Moses:
"And God said, Let there be light, and there was
light." And on and down, for four thousand years,
the sacred volume follows the fortunes of God's chosen
people. And, incidentally, it gives us, at the same
time, light on the contemporary nations of heathen-
dom. See what it has done for science. True, it
does not unfold to us the mysteries of geology, astron-
omy, or chemistry. And yet it does train the mind
for its loftiest flights and its broadest explorations.
"I have always found," said a patron of the National
Institute at Washington, "in my scientific studies, that,
when I could get the Bible to say anything on the
subject, it afforded me a firm platform to stand upon,
and another round in the ladder, by which I could
safely ascend." It throws its beams into the temples
of science and literature, no less than those of religion;
and so prepares the way for man's advancement in
philosophy, metaphysics, and the natural sciences, no
less than in the realm of ethics; and, as it saves the
soul, it exalts the intellect.

The BiHe is adapted to every possible variety of
taste, temperament, culture, and condition. It has
strong reasoning for the intellectual ; it takes the calm
and contemplative to the well-balanced James, and the
affectionate to the loving and beloved John. The
pensive may read the tender lamentations and the

558

THE BIBLE.

funeral strains of Jeremiah. Let the sanguine com-
mune with the graphic and creative Joel ; and the plain
and practical ma}' go to the wise Ecclesiastes or the
outspoken Peter. They who like brilliant apothegms,
should study the book of Proverbs ; and the lover
of pastoral and quiet delineations may dwell with the
sweet singer of Israel, or the richly endowed Amos
and Hosea. If you would take the wings of imagina-
tion, and leap from earth to heaven, or wander through
eternity, then open the Revelation; and pour over and
fill yourself with the glory of the New Jerusalem; and
listen to the seven thunders; and gaze on the pearly
gates and the golden streets of the heavenly city.

Not only is this book precious to the poor and
unlearned; not only is it the counselor and confidence
of the great middle class of society, both spiritually
and mentally speaking; but the scholar and the sage,
the intellectual monarchs of the race, bow to its author-
ity. It has encountered the scorn of a Lucian, the
mystic philosophy of a Porphyry, the heartless skepti-
cism of a Hume, the lore of a Gibbon, the sneers of a
Voltaire, the rude weapons of a Paine, and the subtle,
many-sided neology of modern Germany. But none
of these things have moved it. Nay, parallel with
these attempts at its subjugation, and triumphant over
them all, have advanced the noble works of such com-
manding intellects as Newton, Chalmers, Robert Hall,
Bowditch, Channing, testifying that, to them, the Bible
bore the stamp of a special revelation and the seal of
the Eternal God.

To multitudes of our race this book is not only the

THE BIBLE. 553

foundation of their religious faith, but their daily prac-
tical guide. It has taken hold of the world as no other
book ever did. Not only is it read in all Christian
pulpits, but it enters every habitation from the palace
to the cottage. It is the golden chain which binds
hearts together at the marriage altar; it contains the
sacred formula for the baptismal rite. It blends itself
with our daily conversation, and is the silver thread of
all our best reading, giving its hue, more or less dis-
tinctly, to book, periodical, and daily paper. When
the good mother parts with her dear boy, other vol-
umes may be placed in his hands, but we are sure that,
with tearful prayers, she will fold among his apparel a
Bible. On the seas it goes with the mariner, as his
spiritual chart and compass; and on the land it is to
untold millions their pillar-cloud by day, their fire-
column by night. In the closet and in the street, amid
temptations and trials, this is man's most faithful
attendant, and his strongest shield. It is our lamp
through the dark valley; and the radiator of our best
light from the solemn and unseen future. Stand before
it as a mirror, and you will see there not only your
good traits, but errors, follies, and sins, which you did
not imagine were there until now. You desire to
make constant improvement. Go then to the Bible.
It not only shows the way of all progress, but it
incites you to go forward. It opens before you a path
leading up and still upward, along which good angels
will cheer you, and God himself will lend you a help-
ing hand.

You may go to the statesman, who has filled the

560

THE BIBLE.

highest office in his country, and ask him whether his
cup of jo}^ has been full? As he stands by at the
inauguration of his successor, his shaded brow will
tell you nay. Ask the warrior, coming from the bat-
tle-field, his garments rolled in blood, Did the shouts
of victory satiate his thirst for applause? Bid any
of the godless sons of literary fame, Frederic of Prus-
sia, Ifyron, or Volney, give in their testimony; and
they affirm, in one gloomy voice:

"We've drank every cup of joy, heard every trump
Of fame; drank early, deeply drank, drank draughts
That common millions might have quenched ; — then died
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink."

But never a human being went to the Bible, who
did not find His words true: "But whosoever drink-
eth of the water I will give him, shall never thirst;
for it shall be in him a well of water springing up
into everlasting life." Like an ethereal principle of
light and life, its blessed truths extend with electric
force through all the avenues and elements of the
home-existence, "giving music to language, elevation
to thought, vitality to feeling, intensity to power,,
beauty and happiness."

It is a book for the mind, the heart, the conscience,,
the will and the life. It suits the palace and the cot-
tage, the afflicted and the prosperous, the living and
the dying. It is a comfort to "the house of mourn-
ing," and a check to "the house of feasting." It
"giveth seed to the sower, and bread to the eater."
It is simple, yet grand; mysterious, vet plain; and

THE BIBLE.

561

though from God7 it is, nevertheless, within the eom
prehension of a little child. You may send your
children to school to study other books, from which
they may be educated for this world; but in this divine
book they study the science of the eternal world.

The family Bible has given to the Christian home
that unmeasured superiority in all the dignities and
decencies and enjoyments of life, over the home of
the heathen. It has elevated woman, revealed her
true mission, developed the true idea and sacredness
of marriage and of the home-relationship; it has
unfolded the holy mission of the mother, the respon-
sibilities of the parent, and the blessings of the child.
Take this book from the family, and it will degen-
erate into a mere conventionalism, marriage into a
"social contract;" the spirit of mother will depart;
natural affection will sink to mere brute fondness, and
what we now call home would become a den of sullen
selfishness and barbaric lust!

And in our own day, a throng of good and great
men have venerated this book, and imbibed its spirit.
John Quincy Adams, through a long life, made it his
daily study; a neigbor of his once told me that, amid
the most active portions of life, he always translated a
few verses in his Hebrew Bible, the first thing in the
morning. He read it when a boy; he clung to it
through his manhood; and to his last day, he owed to
it, not only his rare veneration for the Deity, but his
love for freedom and humanity, and all his adamantine
virtues. Jackson, Harrison and Clay were each stu-
dents of the Bible. They lived gratefully by its light;
36

502

RELIGION.

and they died in the hope of its glory. "Though I
walk through the dark valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;" these were among the last words
that fell on the ear of the dying Webster. Sir Walter
Scott, a few days before his death, asked his son-in-law
to read to him. "What book," inquired Mr. Lock-
hart, "would you like?" "Can you ask?" said Sir
Walter, "there is but one." Verily, there is but one
book to be read in our last hours.

Religion is the daughter of heaven, parent of our
virtues, and source of all true felicity; she alone gives
peace and contentment, divests the heart of anxious
cares, bursts on the mind a flood of joy, and sheds
unmingled and perpetual sunshine in the pious breast.
By her the spirits of darkness are banished from the
earth, and angelic ministers of grace thicken unseen
the regions of mortality.

She promotes love and good will among men, lifts
up the head that hangs down, heals the wounded spirit,
dissipates the gloom of sorrow, sweetens the cup of
affliction, blunts the sting of death, and wherever seen,
felt, and enjoyed, breathes around her an everlasting
spring. The external life of man is the creature of
time and circumstance, and passes away, but the
internal abides, and continues to exist. One is the

RELIGION.

563

painted glory of the flower; the other is the delicious
attar of the rose. The city and the temple may be
destroyed, and the tribes exiled and dispersed, yet the
altars and the faith of Israel are still preserved. Spirit
triumphs over form. External life prevails amidst
sounds and shows, and visible things ; the internal
dwells in silence, sighs and tears, and secret sympathies
with the invisible world. Power, and wealth, and lux-
ury, are relative terms; and if address, and prudence,
and policy, can only acquire us our share, we shall not
account ourselves more powerful, more rich, or more
luxurious, than when in the little we possessed we were
still equal to those around us. But if we have narrowed
the sources of internal comfort, and internal enjoyment
if we have debased the powers or corrupted the purity
of the mind, if we have blunted the sympathy or con-
tracted the affections of the heart, we have lost some of
that treasure which was absolutely our own, and derived
not its value from comparative estimation.* Above all,
if we have allowed the prudence or the interests of this
world, to shut out from our souls the view or the hopes
of a better, we have quenched that light which would
have cheered the darkness of affliction. But if we let
God care for our inward and eternal life, if by all the
experiences of this life he is reducing it and preparing
for its disclosure, nothing can befall us but prosperity.
Every sorrow shall be but the setting of some lumin-
ous jewel of joy. Our very mourning shall be but the
enamel around the diamond ; our very hardships but
the metallic rim that holds the opal glancing with
strange interior fires.

564

RELIGION.

If you stand upon the mountain, you may see the
sun shining long after it is dark in the valley. Try to
live up high! Escape, if you can, the malarious damps
of the lowlands. Make an upward path for your feet.
Though your spirit may be destined to live isolated,
you cannot be alone, for God is there. Your best
/strivings of soul are there ! Your standard ground
should be there ! Live upward ! The cedar is always
developing its branches toward the top while the lower
ones are dropping away. Let your soul-life be so !
Upward ! Upward !

" Drink deep, or taste not," is a direction fully as
applicable to religion, if we would find it a source of
pleasure, as it is to knowledge. A little religion is, it
must be confessed, apt to make men gloomy, as a little
knowledge is to render them vain; hence the unjust
imputation brought upon religion by those whose
degree of religion is just sufficient, by condemning
their course of conduct, to render them uneasy; enough
merely to impair the sweetness of the pleasures of sin,
and not enough to compensate for the relinquishment
of them by its own peculiar comforts. Thus, then,
men bring up, as it were, an ill report of that land of
promise, which, in truth, abounds with whatever, in
our journey through life, can best refresh and strengthen
us. Would you wish, amidst the great variety of reli-
gious systems in vogue, to make a right distinction,
and prefer the best? Recollect the character of Christ;
keep a steady eye on that universal and permanent
good will to men, in which he lived, by which he
suffered, and for which he died. Not in those wild and

IMMOMTA LIT Y.

565

romantic notions, which, to make us Christians, would
make us fools; but in those inspired writings, and in
those alone, which contain his genuine history and his
blessed gospel ; and which, in the most peculiar and
extensive sense, and the words of eternal life.

If we wholly perish with the body, what an impos-
ture is this whole system of laws, manners, and usages,
on which human society is founded! If we wholly
perish with the body, these maxims of charity, patience,
justice, honor, gratitude, and friendship, which sages
have taught and good men have practised, what are
they but empty words, possessing no real and binding
efficacy? Why should we heed them, if in this life
only we have hope? Speak not of duty. What can
we owe to the dead, to the living, to ourselves, if all
are, or will be, nothing? Who shall dictate our duty,
if not our own pleasures — if not our own passions?
Speak not of mortality. It is a mere chimera, a bug-
bear of human invention, if retribution terminate with
the grave.

If we must wholly perish, what to us are the sweet
*ties of kindred? What the tender names of parent,
child, sister, brother, husband, wife, or friend? The
characters of a drama are not more illusive. We have
no ancestors, no descendants; since succession cannot

566

IMMORTALITY.

be predicated of nothingness. Would we honor the
illustrious dead? How absurd to honor that which
has no existence! Would we take thought for pos-
terity? How frivolous to concern ourselves for those
whose end, like our own, must soon be annihilation!
Have we made a promise? How can it bind nothing
to nothing? Perjury is but a jest. The last injunc-
tions of the dying — what sanctity have they, more
than the last sound of a chord that is snapped, of an
instrument that is broken?

To sum up all: If we must wholly perish, then is
obedience to the laws but an insensate servitude ; rulers
and magistrates are but the phantoms which popular
imbecility has raised up; justice is an unwarrantable
infringement upon the liberty of men — an imposition,
a usurpation; the law of marriage is a vain scruple;
modesty, a prejudice; honor and probity, such stuff as
dreams are made of; and incests, murders, parricides^
the most heartless cruelties and the blackest crimes,
are but the legitimate sports of man's irresponsible
nature; while the harsh epithets attached to them are
merely such as the policy of legislators has invented
and imposed on the credulity of the people.

Here is the issue to which the vaunted philosophy
of unbelievers must inevitably lead. Here is that
social felicity, that sway of reason, that emancipation
from error, of which they eternally prate, as the fruit
of their doctrines. Accept their maxims, and the
whole world falls back into a frightful chaos; and all
the relations of life are confounded; and all ideas of
vice and virtue are reversed; and the most inviolable

DOING GOOD.

567

laws of society vanish; and all moral discipline per-
ishes; and the government of states and nations has no
longer any cement to uphold it; and all the harmony
of the body politic becomes discord; and the human
race is no more than an assemblage of reckless bar-
barians, shameless, remorseless, brutal, denaturalized,
with no other law than force, no other check than
passion, no other bond than irreligion, no other God
than self! Such would be the world which impiety
would make. Such would be this world, were a
belief in God and immortality to die out of the
human heart.

There are trees, like the butternut, that impoverish
the ground upon which they grow, but the olive tree
enriches the very soil upon which it feeds. So there
are natures as unlike in effect as these. Some cold,
selfish, absorbing, which chill and impoverish every one
with whom they come in contact. Others radiate
affluent souls, who enrich by their very presence,
whose smiles are full of blessing, and whose touch
has a balm of feeling in it like the touch of Him of
Nazareth. Squalid poverty is not so pitiable and bar-
ren as the selfish heart, while wealth has no largeness
like that with which God dowers the broad and sunny

568

DOING GOOD.

soul. Be like the olive, from whose kindly boughs
blessing and benison descends.

One of the old philosophers bid his scholars to con-
sider what was the best thing to possess. One came
and said that there was nothing better than a good
eye, which is, in their language, a liberal and con-
tented disposition. Another said a good companion
is the best thing in the world. A third said a good
neighbor was the best thing he could desire; and the
fourth preferred a man that could foresee things to
come — that is, a wise person. But at last came in
one Eleazer, and he said a good heart was better than
them all. "True," said the master, "thou hast com-
prehended in two words all that the rest have said; for
he that hath a good heart will be both contented, and
a good companion, and a good neighbor, and easily
see what is fit to be done by him."

Every man should ever consider that it is best for
him to have a good heart; having this it will prompt
him to not only do good, but it will encompass many
virtues. We counsel our friends, then, to seize every
opportunity of contributing to the good of others.
Sometimes a smile will do it. Oftener a kind word,
a look of sympathy, or an acknowledgment of obli-
gation. Sometimes a little help to a burdened shoulder,
or a heavy wheel, will be in place. Sometimes a word
or two of good counsel, a seasonable and gentle admo-
nition, and at others, a suggestion of advantage to be
gained and a little interest to secure it, will be received
with lasting gratitude. And thus every instance of
kindness done, whether acknowledged or not, opens

DOING GOOIs.

569

up a little wellspring of happiness in the doer's own
breast, the flow of which may be made permanent by
habit.

Influence is to a man what flavor is to fruit, or fra-
grance to the flower. It does not develop strength,
or determine character, but it is the measure of his
interior richness and worth, and as the blossom cannot
tell what becomes of the odor which is wafted away
from it by every wind, so no man knows the limit of
that influence which constantly and imperceptibly
escapes from his daily life, and goes out far beyond his
conscious knowledge or remotest thought. There are
aoxious weeds and fragrance-laden flowers in the world
of mind as in the world of matter. Truly blessed are
they who walk the way of life as the Savior of man-
kind once walked on our earth, filling all the air about
them with the aroma which is so subtilly distilled from
kindly deeds, helpful words and unselfish lives.

One kernel is felt in a hogshead — one drop of water
helps to swell the ocean — a spark of fire helps to give
light to the world. You are a small man, passing amid
the crowd, you are hardly noticed; but you have a
drop, a spark within you that may be felt through
eternity. Do you believe it? Set that drop in motion,
give wings to that spark, and behold the results ! It
may renovate the world.

None are too small — too feeble — too poor to be of
service. Think of this, and act. Life is no trifle. If
we work upon marble, it will perish ; if we work upon
brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will
crumble into dust. But if we work upon immortal

570

DOING GOOD.

minds — if we imbue them with high principles, with
the just fear of God, and of their fellow-men — we
engrave on these tables something which no time can
efface, but which will brighten to all eternity. It is a
great thing to stand in a place of God, and proclaim
His word in the presence of angels and men.

If you would show yourself a man in the truest and
noblest sense, go not to yonder tented field, where
death hovers, and the vulture feasts himself upon
human victims ! Go not where men are carving monu-
ments of marble to perpetuate names which will not
live in our own grateful memory ! Go not to the
dwellings of the rich ! Go not to the palaces of the
kings ! Go not to the hails of merriment and pleasure t
Go rather to the poor and helpless. Go to the widow
and relieve her woe. Go to the orphan, and speak
words of comfort. Go to the lost, and save him. Go
to the fallen, and raise him up. Go to the sinner, and
whisper in his ear words of eternal life. A man's true
wealth hereafter, is the good he does in this world to
his fellow men. When he dies, people will say, what
property has he left behind him. But the angels who
examine will ask, "What are the good deeds thou hast
sent before thee."

Every one of us may in some way or other assist or
instruct some of his fellow creatures, for the best of the
human race is poor and needy, and all have a mutual
dependence on one another. There is nobody that
cannot do some good; and everybody is bound to do
diligently all the good they can. it is by no means
enough to be rightly disposed, to be serious, and relig-

DOING GOOD.

571

ious in our closets ; we must be useful too, and take
care that as we all reap numberless benefits from
society, society may be the better for every one of us.
It is a false, a faulty, and an indolent humility, that
makes people sit still and do nothing, because they will
not believe that they are capable of doing much, for
everybody can do something. Everybody can set a
good example, be it to many or to few. Everybody
can in some degree encourage virtue and religion, and
discountenance vice and folly. Everybody has some-
one or other whom they can advise, or instruct, or in
some way help to guide through life. Those who are
too poor to give alms can yet give their time, their
trouble, their assistance in preparing or forwarding the-
gifts of others ; in considering and representing dis-
tressed cases to those who can relieve them; in visiting
and comforting the sick and afflicted. Everybody can
offer up their prayers for those who need them; which,
if they do reverently and sincerely, they will never be
wanting in giving them every other assistance that it
should please God to put in their power.

Dr. Johnson used to say, uHe who waits to do a
great deal of good at once, will never do any." Good
is done by degrees. However small in proportion ta
benefits which follow individual attempts to do good, a
great deal may be accomplished by perseverance, even
in the midst of discouragements and disappointments.
Life is made up of little things. It is but once in an
age that occasion is offered for doing a great deed.
True greatness consists in being great in little things.
How are railroads built ? By one shovelful of dirt

572

DOING GOOD.

after another ; one shovelful at a time. Thus drops
make the ocean. Hence we should be willing to do a
little good at a time, and never "wait to do a great
deal of good at once." If we would do much good in
the world, we must be willing to do good in little
things, little acts one after another, setting a good
example all the time; we must do the first good thing
we can, and then the next, and the next, and so keep
on doing good. Oh ! it is great ; there is no other
greatness : to make some nook of God's creation a
little more fruitful, better, more worthy of a God ; to
make some human hearts a little wiser, more manful,
happier ; more blessed, less accursed ! The first and
paramount aim of religion is not to prepare for another
world, but to make the best of this world ; or, more
correctly stated, to make this world better, wiser, and
happier. It is to be good, and do the most good we
can now and here, and to help others to be and do the
same. It is to seek with all our might the highest
welfare of the world we live in, and the realization of
its ideal greatness, nobleness, and blessedness. A most
•comforting thought is, that the forever will not be a
place of white robes and golden harps and praise sing-
ing only, but will also be a place for living, loving and
doing. There is pleasure in contemplating good; there
is a greater pleasure in receiving good; but the greatest
pleasure of all is in doing good, which comprehends
the rest. Do good with what thou hast, or it will do
thee no good. The power of doing good to worthy
•objects, is the only enviable circumstance in the lives
of people of fortune. Napoleon once entered a cathe-

WELL DOING.

57$

dral and saw twelve silver statues. "What are these,"
said the Emperor. "The twelve Apostles," was the
reply. "Well," said he, "take them down, melt them,
and coin them into money, and let them go about
doing good, as their Master did.'1 Be always sure of
doing good. This will make your life comfortable,
your death happy, and your account glorious. Zeal-
ously strive to do good for the sake of good. Be not
simply good ; be good for something.

' How sweet t' will be at evening

If you and I can say
"Good Shepherd, we've been seeking

The lambs that went astray;
Heart-sore, and faint with hunger,

We heard them making moan,
And lo! we come at night-fall

Bearing them safely home ! "

I am happy, says G. S. Weaver, in knowing that
although men differ about woman's intellectual capaci-
ties, they agree in ascribing to her the highest order of
moral and social qualities. All admit that woman is
the morality and religion, the love and sociality, of
humanity. In these developments of human attain-
ments, she is the queen without a peer. These are at
present woman's peculiar fields of power. Society has
measurably shut her out from the intellectual arena of

574

WELL DOING.

life. But if it has cut short her operations in this, it
has extended them in the field of social life. Wide and
grand are her opportunities here. Man is not so defi-
cient in gallantry as he is in generosity and judgment.
In what man has oppressed woman it is more the fault
of his head than his heart; it is more a weakness of
conscience than of affection. He is prouder of his
judgment than he ought to be. His judgment often
fails because it is not sanctified by conscience. His
intellect is often deceived because its vision is not
extended and widened by a deep affection and a broad
benevolence. In this, woman has the advantage of
him in the present relations of the sexes. Her moral
sense consecrates her intellect, and her heart quickens
it, thus making her judgment more intuitive and ready,
more comprehensive and sure. She feels that a thing
is so; he reasons that it is so. She judges by impres-
sion when facts are stated; he by logic. Her impres-
sions she cannot always explain, because her intellect
has not been sufficiently cultivated; his logic often fails
him, because it is not sufficiently imbued with the moral
element. The light of the conscience and the heart
does not shine upon it with sufficient strength. This -
we understand to be the present difference between the
male and female mind. It is more than a difference in
growth and culture, in inherent constitution. We do
not believe that the relation between the different
departments of the human mind naturally differ in
men and women; that is, we do not believe that man is
more intelligent and less moral, and woman more moral
and less intellectual. A perfect male mind is an equal

WELL DOING.

575

strength of the several departments of mind; that is,
an equal strength of the intellectual, moral, social, and
energetic portions of the mind, a balance among its
several powers. The same is true of the female mind.

So far as this relation of the parts is concerned, it is
the same in the perfect male and female mind. In just
so much as this relation is changed, is the judgment
corrupted and the mental strength impaired. In the
present male mind this relation is changed by giving
the greater cultivation to the intellect, and less to the
moral sense and the heart. So his judgment is impaired
and the moral dignity of his soul debased. He is a less
man than he ought to be; is d ^imed in his mental
growth like a tree grown in a shady place where the
light could reach it from only one quarter. He has
less power of mind than he would have with the same
amount of cultivation properly and equally distributed
among the several departments of his mind. Strength
lies in balance of power. Our men are not too intel-
lectual, but too intellectual for their moral and affec-
tionate strength. They are like an apple grown all on
one side, or a horse with disproportioned body, or any
animal with some of its limbs too short for the rest.
Mentally they are deformed and lame by their one-
sided culture. In the present female mind there is a
disproportion in another direction. In this the intellect
has been neglected, while the moral and social mind
has had a better degree of cultivation. Thus our
women have been mentally deformed and weakened.
They are less woman than they ought to have been.
Their characters and judgments have lacked harmony,

576

WELL DOING.

and their lives have been marked by the same deficien-
cies. Their minds are one-sided and marked with sad
irregularities. They are not too moral and affectionate,,
but are not sufficiently intellectual. The same amount
of culture which they have received would have con-
ferred more beauty and dignity to the character and
life had it been more general, or equally applied to the
several powers of mind. Sound judgment, pure life.,
dignity of character are the resuks of a balance of
power and culture in the several departments of mind*
This difference in the culture of the male and female
mind has made a breach between the sexes. The
present male mind c:: "not comprehend the female, nor
the female the male. Instead of growing up in
similarity and harmony, they have grown up into wide
differences.

The male and female mind are not alike by natuie,.
by any means. There is a wide difference between
them; but the difference is in the nature, texture, and
quality of the mind, and not in the relation of parts.
The female mind has an inherent constitution peculiar
to itself that makes it female; so with the male. This
difference is beyond the fathoming line of human
thought. We know it exists, but wherefore and how
we know not. It is the secret of the Divine Construc-
tor of mentality. In our mental structure we are to
seek for harmony, a consistent rhythmic development
of parts. The opportunities offered to woman for the
cultivation of her moral and religious nature are
eminently favorable. If her intellectual opportunities
are not so good, her moral and religious are better

WELL DOING. 577

She is not so pressed with temptation. The world does
not bear with such an Atlas burden on her conscience.
The almighty dollar does not eclipse so large a field of
her mental vision. Material pursuits do not check so
much her spiritual progress. God is nearer to her
heart, more in her thoughts, sweeter in her soul,
brighter in her visions, because she is less compassed
about by the snares of vice and the hostile pursuits of
the false and flattering world. It is a blessed thing for
humanity that woman is more religious and morally
upright; because man is too irreverent and base. He
lacks the sanctity of high morality and the consecra-
tion of religion. I speak of man in the mass. Woman
is the conservation of morality and religion. Her
moral worth holds man in some restraint and preserves
his ways from becoming inhumanly corrupt. Mighty
is the power of woman in this respect. Every virtue
in woman's heart has its influence on the world. Some
men feel it. A brother, husband, friend, or son, is.
touched by its sunshine. Its mild beneficence is not
lost. A virtuous woman in the seclusion of her home,,
breathing the sweet influence of virtue into the hearts
and lives of its beloved ones, is an evangel of goodness
to the world. She is one of the pillars of the eternal
kingdom of right. She is a star shining in the moral
firmament. She is a princess administering at the
fountains of life.* Every prayer she breathes is an-
swered to a greater or less extent in the hearts and
lives of those she loves. Her piety is an altar-fire
where religion acquires strength to go out on its merci-
ful mission. We cannot overestimate the utility and
37

578

WELL DOLNG.

power of woman's moral and religious character. The
world would go to ruin without it. With all our
ministers and churches, and Bibles and sermons, man
would be a prodigal without the restraint of woman's
virtue and the consecration of her religion. Woman
first lays her hand on our young powers. She plants
the first seeds. She makes the first impressions; and
all along through life she scatters the good seed of 'the
kingdom and sprinkles the dews of her piety. But
woman does not do enough. Her power is not yet
equal to its need. Her virtue is not mighty enough.
Her religion comes short in its work. Look out and
see the world — a grand Pandora's box of wickedness —
a great battle-field of clashing passions and warring
interests — a far-spread scene of sensualism and selfish-
ness, in which woman herself acts a conspicuous part.
Look at society— the rich eating up the poor ; the poor
stabbing at the iich; fashion playing in the halls of
gilded sensualism ; folly dancing to the tune of ignorant
mirth; intemperance gloating over its roast beef, or
whisky jug, brandy punch, champagne bottle, bearing
thousands upon thousands down to the grave of igno-
miny, sensualism, and drunkenness. Is there not a need
of more vigorous virtue in woman? Is there not a call
for a more active religion, a more powerful impulse in
behalf of morality? Who shall heed this cry of wicked,
wasting humanity, if young woman does not? To
youthful woman we must look for a powerful leader in
the cause of morality and religion. The girls of to-day
are to be greatly instrumental in giving a moral com.
plexion to the society of to-morrow. It is important

WELL DOING.

579

that they should fix high this standard of virtue. They
ought to lay well their foundations of religion. They
ought early to baptize their souls in the consecrated
waters of truth and right.

The first element in their moral character which

i

they should seek to establish firmly is -purity. A pure
heart is the fountain of life. "The pure in heart shall
see God." Not only is purity of life needed to make
a young woman beautiful and useful, but purity in
thought, feeling, emotion, and motive. All within us
that lies open to the gaze of God should be pure. A
young woman should be in heart what she seems to be
in life. Her Words should correspond with her thoughts.
The smile of her face should be the smile of her heart.
The light of her eye should be the light of her soul.
She should abhor deception; she should loathe intrigue;
she should have a deep disgust of duplicity. Her life
should be the outspoken language of her mind, the
eloquent poem of her soul speaking in rhythmic beau-
ties the intrinsic merit of inward purity. Purity
antecedes all spiritual attainments and progress. It is
the first and fundamental virtue in a good character; it
is the letter A in the moral alphabet; it is the first step
in the spiritual life; it is the Alpha of the eternal state
of soul which has no Omega. Whatever may be our
mental attainments or social qualities, we are nothing
without purity ; only " tinkling cymbals." Our love is
stained, our benevolence corrupted, our piety a pretense
which God will not accept. An impure young woman
is an awful sight. She outrages all just ideas of
womanhood, all proper conceptions of spiritual beauty.

580

WELL DOING.

To have evil imaginings, corrupt longings, or deceitful
propensities ought to startle any young woman. To
feel a disposition to sensuality, a craving for the glitter
of a worldly life, or a selfish ambition for unmerited
distinction is dangerous in the extreme. It is the exu-
ding of impure waters from the heart. Who feels such
utterings within should beware. They are the whisper-
ings of an evil spirit, the* temptations to sin and crime.
If I could speak to all the young women in the world, I
would strive to utter the intrinsic beauties and essential
qualities of purity; I would seek to illustrate it as the
fountain of all that is great and good, all that is spiritu-
ally grand and redeeming. There is no virtue, no
spiritual life, no moral beauty, no glory of soul, nor
dignity of character without purity.

The second virtue she should cultivate is benevolence.
Queen of virtues, lovely star in the crown of life, bright
and glorious image of Him who is love, how beautiful
is it in woman's heart! A woman without benevolence
is not a woman; she is only a deformed personality of
womanhood. In every heart there are many tendencies
to selfishness, but the spirit of benevolence counteracts
them all. A hollow, cold, graceless, ungodly thing is a
heart without benevolence. In a world like this, where
we are all so needy and dependent, where our interests
are so interlocked, where our lives and hearts overlap
each other, and often grow together, we cannot live
without a good degree of benevolence. Our true earth-
life is a benevolent one. Our highest interests are in
the path of benevolence. We do most for ourselves
when we do most for others. "It is more blessed to

WELL DOING.

581

give than to receive." Good deeds double in the doing,
and the larger half comes back to the door. The most
benevolent soul lives nearest to God. A large heart of
charity is a noble thing. Selfishness is the root of evil;
benevolence is its cure. In no heart is benevolence
more beautiful than in youthful woman's. In no heart
is selfishness more ugly. To do good is noble; to be
good is nobler. This should be the aim of all young
women. The poor and needy should occupy a large
place , in their hearts. The sick and suffering should
move upon their sympathies. The sinful and criminal
should awaken their deepest pity. The oppressed and
down-trodden should find a large place in their compas-
sion. How blessed is woman on errands of mercy!
How sweet are her soothing words to the disconsolate!
How consoling her tears of sympathy to the mourning!
How fresh her spirit of hope to the discouraged! How
soft her hand to the sick! How balmy the breath of
her love to the oppressed! Woman appears in one of
■her loveliest aspects when she appears as the practical
follower of Him who "went about doing good." The
young woman who does these works of practical
benevolence is educating her moral powers in the
school of earnest and glorious life. She is laying the
foundations for a noble and useful 'womanhood. She is
planting the seeds of a charity that will grow to bless
and save the suffering of our fellow-men. In no other
way can she so successfully cultivate the virtue of
benevolence. It is not enough that she pity the sorrows
of the poor and suffering. Her hand must be taught
to heed the pleadings of her pitying heart. What she

582

WELL DOING.

feels, she must do. What she wishes, she must make
an effort to accomplish. What she prays for, she must
strive to attain. Everybody predicts a beautiful life
from a good-doing young woman.

The third virtue which the young woman should
cultivate is integrity, or the sentiment of duty. A
German philosopher has poetically and truthfully said,,
"The two most beautiful things in the universe are the
starry heavens above our heads and the sentiment of
duty in the human soul." Few objects are richer for
the contemplation of a truly high-minded man than a
young woman who lives, acts, speaks, and exerts her
powers from an enlightened conviction of duty ; in
whose soul the voice of duty is the voice of God. In
such women there is a mighty force of moral power.
Though they may be gentle as the lamb, or retiring and
modest in their demeanor, there is in them what com-
mands respect, what enforces esteem. They are the
strong women. The sun is not truer to his course than
they to theirs. They are reliable as the everlasting
rocks. Every day finds in them the same beautiful,
steady, moral firmness. Men look to them with a con-
fidence that knows no doubt. They are fearless and
brave, they have but to know their duty to be ready to
engage in it. Though men laugh or sneer, though the
world frown or threaten, they will do it. There is no
bravado in them; it is the simple power of integrity.
They are true to what to them seems right. Such
spirits are often the mildest and meekest we have.
They are sweet as the flower while they are firm as
the rock. We know them by their lives. They are

WELL DOING.

583

consistent, simple-hearted, uniform, and truthful. The
word on the tongue is the exact speech of the heart.
The expression they wear is the spirit they bear. Their
parlor demeanor is their kitchen and closet manner.
Their courtesy abroad is their politeness at home.
Their confiding converse is such as the world may
hear and respect them the more for it. Such are the
women of integrity. Men love to trust their fortunes
in their hands. The good love to gather around them
for the blessing of their smiles; they strew their path-
way with moral light* They bless without effort; they
teach sentiments of duty and honesty in every act of
their lives. Such is the rectitude of character which
every young woman should cultivate. Nothing will
more surely secure confidence and esteem. There is
especial need of such cultivation, for young women are
doubted in many respects more generally than any
other class of people. Most people seldom think of
believing many things they hear from the lips of young
women, so little is genuine integrity cultivated among
them. I am sorry to make such a remark. I wish
truth did not compel it.

I would that young women would cultivate the
strictest regard for truth in all things; in small as well
as in important matters. Exaggeration or false color-
ing is as much a violation of integrity as a direct false-
hood. Equivocation is often falsehood. Deception in
all forms is opposed to integrity. Mock manners, pre-
tended emotions, affectation, policy plans to secure
attention and respect are all sheer falsehoods, and in the
end injure her who is guilty of them. Respect and

£84

WELL DOING.

affection are the outgrowth of confidence. She
who secures the firmest confidence will secure the
most respect and love. No love is lasting but
that which rests in confidence. Confidence can only
be secured by integrity. The young, woman with .«
a high sense of duty will always secure confidence,
and having this, she will secure respect, affection, and
influence.

The fourth virtue of inestimable value which the
young woman should cultivate is piety. This may be
regarded as the crown of all moral virtues. It is that
which sanctifies the rest. It is a heavenly sun in the
moral firmament, shedding a divine luster through the
soul — a balmy, hallowing light, sweeter than earth can
give. Piety is the meek-eyed maid of heaven, that
holds her sister Faith in one hand and Hope in the
other, and looks upward with a confiding smile, saying,
"My treasure is above." Of all the influences wrought
in the human soul, the work of piety is the most har-
monizing and divine. It subdues the flesh and the
world, and calls down heaven to bless the happy pietist.
It is the constant, ever-speaking voice of the Father
uttering in sublime and beautiful impressions the holy
eloquence of his everlasting love. It is the communing
ground of the mortal child with the immortal Parent.
In the mind of youthful woman it is as beautiful as it
can be anywhere. And when she consecrates all her
powers by the laying on of its heavenly hands, and
sanctifies all her feelings by its hallowed influences, she
exhibits a view of beauty — of physical, moral, and
spiritual beaut}' — not elsewhere surpassed on earth.

WELL DOING,

585 ,

A deep, pervading, all-controlling piety is the highest
attainment of man on earth. It is that reverent, humble,
grateful, affectionate, and virtuous purity of spirit in
which the human and divine meet and embrace each
other. It is the spiritual crown which men put on
when they go into the kingdom of heaven. This is
what we urge as the last and finishing excellency
of the youthful female character. The cultivation
of this is what we press as conferring mortal per-
fection of character, or as great perfection as frail,
sinful creatures can put on' below "the mansions of the
skies.1'

We urge it as the best and highest duty of every
young woman — a duty she owes to herself, her fellows,
and her God — a duty as full of joys as the heavens are
of stars, and when performed, reflecting matchless
grace upon her soul. We do not urge it through fear
of hell or hope of heaven; we do not urge it from
motives of policy; we urge it for its own intrinsic
worth; for the blessedness of being pious; for the
excellency and worth of character and life it confers.
No character is complete till it is swayed and elevated
by genuine piety. No heart is fully happy till it is
imbued with the spirit of piety. No life is all it may
and should be till its motives are baptized in the waters
of piety. No soul is saved till it is transformed by the
gracious spirit of this daughter of the skies. This
divine grace of the soul should be sought by every
young woman, and cultivated with the most assiduous
care, for withoutit she is destitute of the highest beauty
and divinest charm and power of womanhood.

586

OLD AGE.

" No snow falls lighter than the snow of age ; but none is heavier,
for -it never melts."

The rigure is by no means novel, but the closing
part of the sentence is new as well as emphatic. The
Scriptures represent age by the almond-tree, which
bears blossoms of the purest white. "The almond-tree
shall flourish," the head shall be hoary. Dickens says
of one of his characters/ whose hair was turning gray,
that it looked as if Time had lightly splashed his snows
upon it in passing.

"It never melts" — no never. Age is inexorable.
Its wheels must move onward; they know no retro-
grade movement. The old man may sit and sing, "I
would I were a boy again," but he grows older as he
sings. He may read of the elixir of youth, but he
cannot find it; he may sigh for the secrets of that
alchemy which is able to make him young again, but
sighing brings it not. Fie may gaze backward with an
eye of longing upon the rosy scenes of early years, as-
one who gazes on his home from the deck of a depart-
ing ship, which every moment carries him farther and
farther away. Poor old man ! he has little more to do
than die.

"It never melts." The snow of winter comes and
sheds its white blessings upon the valley and the moun-
tains, but soon the sweet spring comes and smiles it all
away. Not so with that upon the brow of the tottering
veteran. There is no spring whose warmth can pene-

FOR THE ROYAL PATH OF LIFE

OLD AGE.

587

trate its eternal frost. It came to stay. Its single flakes
fell unnoticed — and now it is drilled there. We shall
see it increase until we lay the old man in his grave.
There it shall be absorbed by the eternal darkness —
for there is no age in heaven.

The young, who all wish to live, but who at the
same time have a dread at growing old, may not be
disposed to allow the justice of the representation we
are now to make. They regard old age as a dreary
season, that admits of nothing which can be called
pleasure, and very little which deserves the name even
of comfort. They look forward to it, as in autumn we
anticipate the approach of winter; but winter, though
it terrifies us at a distance, has nothing very formidable
when it arrives. Its enjoyments are of a different kind,
but we find it not less pleasant than any other season
of the year.

In like manner old age, frightful as it may be to the
young, who view it afar off, has no terror to them who
see it near; but experience proves that it abounds with
consolations, and even with delights. We should look
therefore with pleasure on many old men, whose illu-
minated faces and hoary heads resemble one of those
pleasant days in winter, so common in this climate,
when a bright sun darts its beams on a pure field of
snow. The beauty of spring, the splendor of summer,
and the glory of autumn are gone; but the prospect is
still lively and cheerful.

Among other circumstances which contribute to the
satisfaction of this period of life, is the respect with
which old age is treated. There are, it must be

^588

OLD AGE.

acknowledged and lamented, some foolish and ill-edu-
cated young persons who do not pay that veneration
which is due to the hoary head; but these examples
are not numerous.

The world in general bows down to age, gives it
precedence, and listens with deference to its opinions.
Old age wants accommodations ; and it must in justice
to man be allowed that they are afforded with cheer-
fulness. Who can deny that such reverence is soothing
to the human mind? and that it compensates us for the
loss of many pleasures which are peculiar to youth?

The respect of the world in general is gratifying;
but the respect of a man's own offspring must yield
heartfelt delight. Can there be a more pleasing sight,
than a venerable old man surrounded by his children
and grandchildren, all of whom are emulous of each
other in testifying their homage and affection? His
children, proud of their honored father, strive who
shall treat him with the most attention, while his
grandchildren hang on his neck, entertain him with
their innocent prattle, and convince him that they
love their grandfather not less than they love their
father. Whoever takes a little child into his love,
may have a very roomy heart, but that child will fill
it all. The children that are in the world keep us
from growing old and cold; they cling to our garments
with their little hands, and impede our progress to
petrification; they win us back with their pleading
eyes from cruel care; they never encumber us at all.
A poor old couple, with no one to love them, is a most
pitiful picture; but a hovel with a small face to fill a

OLD AGE.

58$-

broken pane, here and there, is robbed of its desolate-
ness. A little thoughtful attention, how happy it
makes the old ! They have outlived most of the
friends of their early youth. How lonely their hours!
Often their partners in life have long rilled silent
graves; often their children they have followed to
the tomb. They stand solitary, bending on their staff,
waiting till the same call shall reach them. How
often they must think of absent, lamented faces, of
the love which cherished them, and the tears of sym-
pathy which fell with theirs — now all gone. Why
should not the young cling around and comfort themv
cheering their gloom with happy smiles?

That old man! what disappointments he has encoun-
tered in his long journey, what bright hopes blasted,
what sorrows felt, what agonies endured, how many
loved ones he has covered up in the grave. And that
old woman too! husband dead, children all buried or
far away, life's flowers faded, the friends of her youth
no more, and she waiting to go soon. Ought we ever
to miss an opportunity of showing attention to the aged,
of proffering a kindness, or lighting up a smile, by a
courteous act or a friendly deed?

Why speak of age in a mournful strain? It is
beautiful, honorable, eloquent. Should we sigh at
the proximity of death, when life and the world are
so full of emptiness? Let the old exult because they
are old. If any must weep, let it be the young, at the
long succession of cares that are before them. Wel-
come the snow, for it is the emblem of peace and of

9

590 DEATH.

rest. It is but a temporal crown which shall fall at the
gates of Paradise, to be replaced by a brighter and a
better.

No sex is spared, no age exempt. The majestic
and courtly roads which monarchs pass over, the way
that the men of letters tread, the path the warrior
traverses, the short and simple annals of the poor, all
lead to the same place, all terminate, however varied
in their routes, in that one enormous house which is
appointed for all living. One short sentence closes the
biography of every man, as if in mockery of the
unsubstantial pretensions of human pride, "The days
of the years of Methuselah were nine hundred and
sixty-nine years, and he died." There is the end of it
"And he died." Such is the frailty of this boasted
man. "It is appointed unto men" — unto all men —
"once to die." No matter what station of honor we
hold, we are all subject to death.

As in chess-play, so long as the game is playing, all
the men stand in their order and are respected accord-
ing to their places — first the king, then the queen,
then the bishops, after them the knights, and last of all
the common soldiers; but when once the game is ended
and the table taken away, then they are all confusedly

DEATH. 591

tumbled into a bag, and haply the king is lowest and
the pawn upmost. Even so it is with us in this life;
the world' is a huge theater, or stage, wherein some
play the parts of kings, others of bishops, some lords,
many knights, and others yeomen; but death sends all
alike to the grave and to the judgment. )

Death comes equally to us all and makes us all equal
when it comes. The ashes of an oak in a chimney are
no epitaph of that, to tell me how high or how large
that was ; it tells me not what flocks it sheltered when
it stood, nor what men it hurt when it fell. The dust
of great men's graves is speechless too: it says nothing;
it distinguishes nothing. "As soon the dust of a wretch
whom thou wouldst not, as of a prince whom thou
couldst not look upon, will trouble thine eyes if the
wind blow it thither ; and when a whirlwind hath
blown the dust of a church-yard into a church, and the
man sweeps out the dust of the church into the church-
yard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again and
to pronounce: This is the patrician, this is the noble
flower, and this is the yeoman, this is plebeian bran?"

Look at that hero, as he stands on an eminence and
covered with glory. He falls suddenly, forever falls.
His intercourse with the living world is now ended, and
those who would hereafter find him must seek him in
the grave. There, cold and lifeless, is the heart which
just now was the seat of friendship; there, dim and
sightless, is the eye whose radiant and enlivening orb
beamed with intelligence ; and there, closed forever, ard
those lips, on . whose persuasive accents we have so
often and so lately hung with transport.

592

DEATH.

From the darkness which rests upon his tomb there
proceeds, methinks, a light, in which it is clearly seen
that those gaudy objects which men pursue are only
phantoms. In this light, how dimly shines the splendor
of victor)' — how humble appears the majesty of grand-
eur! The bubble, which seemed to have so much
solidity, has burst, and we again see that all below the
sun is vanity.

^ True, the funeral eulogy has been pronounced, the
sad and solemn procession has moved, the badge of
mourning has already been decreed, and presently the
sculptured marble will lift up its front, proud to per-
petuate the name of the hero and rehearse to the
passing traveler his virtues — just tributes of respect-
and to the living useful — but to him, moldering in his
narrow and humble habitation, what are they? How
vain! how unavailing!

Approach, and behold, while I lift from his sepulchre
its covering! Ye admirers of his greatness — ye emu-
lous of his talents and his fame — approach and behold
him now. How pale! how silent! No martial bands
admire the adroitness of his movements ; no fascinating
throng weep, and melt, and tremble at his eloquence I
Amazing change! A shroud, a coffin, a narrow, sub-
terraneous cabin! — this is all that now remains of the
hero ! And is this all that remains of him ? During a
life so transitory, what lasting monument, then, can our
fondest hopes erect! s •

My brethren, we stand on the borders of an awful
gulf, which is swallowing up all things human. And is
there, amidst this universal wreck, nothing stable.

DEATH. 593

nothing abiding, nothing immortal, on which poor,
frail, dying man can fasten? Ask the hero, ask the
statesman, whose wisdom you have been accustomed
to revere, and he will tell you. He will tell you, did 1
say? He has already told you, from his death-bed, and
his illumined spirit still whispers from the heavens,
with well-known eloquence, the solemn admonition:
^Mortals hastening to the tomb, and once the com-
panions of my pilgrimage, take warning and avoid my
errors ; cultivate the virtues I have recommended ;
choose the Savior I have chosen; live disinterestedly;
live for immortality; and would you rescue anything
from final dissolution, lay it up in God.'^
C Ah, it is true that a few friends will go and bury us ;
affection will rear a stone and plant a few flowers over
our grave; in a brief period the little hillock will be
smoothed down, and the stone will fall, and neither
friend nor stranger will be concerned to ask which one
of the forgotten millions of the earth was buried there.
Every vestige that we ever lived upon the earth will
have vanished away. All the little memorials of our
remembrance — the lock of hair encased in gold, or the
portrait that hung in our dwelling, will cease to have
the slightest interest to any living being. )

We need but look into the cemetery and see the
ten thousand upturned faces; ten thousand breathless
bosoms. There was a time when fire flashed through
those vacant orbs; when warm ambitions, hopes, joys
and the loving life pushed in those bosoms. Dreams
of fame and power once haunted those empty skulls.
The little piles of bones, that once were feet, ran
38

594 j)EATH.

swiftly and determinedly through twenty, forty, sixty,
seventy years of life, but where are the prints they
left? He lived — he died — he was buried — is all that
the headstone tells us. We move among the monu-
ments, we see the sculpturing, but no voice comes to
us to say that the sleepers are remembered for any
thing they have done. A generation passes by. Th
stones turn gray, and the man has ceased to be, and \\
to the world, as if he had never lived.

Thus is life. Only a few years do we journey hen
and. we come to that bridge — Death — which trans«
ports us as the road we have traveled, either virtue,
happiness and joy, to a happy paradise of love, or
the road of passion, lust and vice to destructive
✓ wretchedness.
/ A proper view of death may be useful to abate most
of the irregular passions. Thus, for instance, we may
see what avarice comes to in the coffin of the miser;
this is the man who could never be satisfied with riches ;•
but see now a few boards enclose him, and a few square
inches contain him. Study ambition in the grave of
that enterprising man; see his great designs, his bound-
less expedients are all shattered and sunk in this fatal
gulf of all Human projects. Approach the tomb of the
proud man; see the haughty countenance dreadfully
disfigured, and the tongue that spoke the most lofty
things condemned to eternal silence. Go to the tomb
of the monarch, and there study quality; behold his
great titles, his royal robes, and all his flatteries — all
are no more forever in this world. Behold the conse-
quence of intemperance in the tomb of the glutton;

DEATH.

595

see his appetite now fully satiated, his senses destroyed
and his bones scattered. Thus the tombs of the wicked
condemn their practice and strongly recommend virtue^

Death reigns in all the portions of our time. The
autumn, with its fruits, provides disorders for us, and
the winter's cold turns them into sharp diseases; and
the spring brings flowers to strew our hearse; and the
summer gives green turf and brambles to bind upon
our graves. Calentures and surfeit, cold and agues
are the four quarters of the year, and all minister unto
death. Go where you will and it will find you. Many
dread it and try to flee from it as the king of terrors.
(is he an enemy, when God sends him to deliver us
from pains, follies, disappointments, miseries and wo?
Is he an enemy, who transfers us from delusive dreams
from the region of bubbles and corroding cares, to a
region where all is pure, substantial, enduring joy and
endless felicity? It is a libel on death to call him our
foe, a king of terrors, an enemy.

Frail man comes into the world crying, cries on
through life, and is always seeking after some desired
thing which he imagines is labelled happiness, or is
mourning over some loss, which makes him miserable;
a restless mortal body, with an immortal soul, that
requires something more than earth can give to satisfy
its lofty desires; the soul that hails death as the wel-
come messenger, to deliver it from its ever changing,
ever decaying prison-house of clay, called man; on
which time wages -a perpetual war; whitening his
locks, furrowing his cheeks, stealing his ivory, weak-
ening his nerves, paralyzing his muscles, poisoning his

596

DEATH.

blood, battering Iris whole citadel, deranging the whole
machinery of life, and wasting his mental powers; until
he becomes twice a child; and then delivers him over
to his last and best friend, death, who breaks the
carnal bondage, sets the imprisoned spirit free, closing
a toilsome career of infelicity; opening the door of
immortal happiness, returning the soul to its own,
original, and glorious home; to go no more out forever.
Not to become familiar with death, is to endure much
unnecessary fear, and add to the myriads of the other
imaginary woes of human life.

Death to them that be God's dear children is no
other thing than the despatcher of all displeasure, the
end of all travail, the door of desires, the gate of glad-
ness, the port of paradise, the haven of heaven, the
entrance to felicity, the beginning of all blissfulness. It
is the very bed of down for the doleful bodies of God's
people to rest in, out of which they rise and awake
most fresh and lusty to everlasting life. It is a passage
to the Father, a chariot to heaven, the Lord's messen-
ger, a going to our home, a deliverance from bondage,
a dismission from war, a security from all sorrows, and
a manumission from all misery. And should we be
dismayed at it ? Should we trouble to hear of it ?
Should such a friend as it be unwelcome ? Death is
but life to a true believer ; it is not his last day, nor his
worst day, but in the highest sense his best day. and
the beginning of his better life. A Christian's dying
day will be his enlarging day, when he shall be freed
from the prison in which he has long been detained,
and be brought home to his Father's house. A Chris-

DEATH.

597

tian's dying day will be his resting day, when he shall
rest from all sin and care and trouble ; his reaping
day, when he shall reap the fruit he has sown in tears
and faith ; his conquering clay, when he shall triumph
over every enemy, and even death itself shall die ; his
transplanting day, from earth £o heaven, from a howl-
ing wilderness to a heavenly paradise ; his robing
day, to put off the old worn-out rags of flesh, and
put on the new and glorious robes of light ; his
marriage day ; his coronation day ; the day of his
glory, the beginning of his eternal , perfect bliss with
Christ.^

We at death leave one place to go to another ; if
godly we depart from our place here on earth, and go
to heaven ; we depart from our friends on earth and
go to our friends in heaven ; we depart from the valley
of tears and go to the mount of joy ; we depart from
a howling wilderness and go to a heavenly paradise.
Cwh o would be unwilling to exchange a Sodom for a
Zion, an Egypt for a Canaan, misery for glory?)
(What a superlatively grand and consoling idea is
that of death ! Without this radiant idea, this delight-
ful morning star, indicating that the luminary of eter-
nity is going to rise, life would, to our view, darken
into midnight melancholy. Oh, the expectation of
living here, and of living thus always, would, be indeed
a prospect of overwhelming despair ! But thanks be
to that fatal decree that dooms us to die ! thanks to
that gospel which opens the vision of an endless life !
and thanks, above all, to that Savior friend who has
promised to conduct all th<i faithful through the sacred

598

DEATH.

trance of death, into scenes of paradise and everlasting
deiightjj

Oh, that all may be prepared for this awful change,
but how often we hear the mournml exclamation,
"Too latejjf from men who come up to the doors of a
bank just as the key has turned in the lock ; or up to
the great gates of a railway terminus just as they
swing to, and tell the tardy traveler he has lost his
train ; or up to the post office just as the mail has been
despatched ; but how should we tremble if our ears
could hear the despairing cr}' of souls whom the stony
gaze of that grim messenger has fixed in sin forevex^j
How would our hearts thrill with horror to accompany
one, without hope of heaven, to the portals of death.
^ How do men dread such death scenes as that of a
young skeptic called suddenly from time to eternity.
"Begone!" he cried to the* clergyman ; "I want none
of your cant" when he showed him the great need of
repentance. "I am not going to die; and if I were I
would die as I have lived." The physician came, to
whom he said: "Oh! tell me I am not dying; I will
not die!" "My poor friend, I cannot speak falsely to
y(5u ; your soul will, ere long, be with your God."
u My God I" he said, "I have no God save the world;
I have stifled conviction, I have fought against God, I
have resisted my mother's pleadings, and now you tell
me that I must die. Do you know," he added, in
an awful whisper, "all that means? If I die to-day
I shall <ro to hell! Take it back; tell me I'm not*
going to die. Father," he said, " Was you who taught
me this; you led me on in this way, and now you

jJEATH.

599

say fm to die. Stand back!" he shrieked; "/ will
not die!" and a torrent of invectives issued from his
fever-parched lips, so terrible in their madness that it
seemed like a wail from the sea of woe. No wonder
the poor mother was borne fainting from the room,
and the father's brow was corrugated, while great
drops of agony rested there. Ah, that infidel father!
how must his hear,t have bled in that dreadful hour,
when in the midst of dire cursings, his gifted son fell
back a corpse^

What a striking contrast between such a death and
the following:

L One of Martin Luther's children lay on her death
bed; the great man approached her and said to her:
" My little daughter, my beloved Margaret, you would
willingly remain with your earthly parents, but if God
calls you, you will go with your heavenly Father."
"Yes, dear father, it is as God pleases." He then said:
"My daughter, enter thou into thy resting place in
peace." She turned her eyes towards him and said,
with touching simplicity, "Yes, father." How resign-
edly could the believing Luther part with his dying
child, and methinks the sentiment of his heart was
very like the inscription on a child's tombstone in an
English churchyard, as follows: "'Who plucked that
flower?' cried the gardener, as he walked through the
garden. His fellow servant answered, 'The Master.'
And the gardener held his peace."
( When this hand of mine shall be pulseless and cold,
and motionless as the grave wherein it must lie; when
the damp, dewy vapors shall replace "this sensible,

600

DEATH.

warm motion, n and death shall spread my couch and
weave my shroud ; when the winding-sheet shall be my
sole vesture, and the close-sealed sepulchre my only
home, and I shall have no familiar companion, and no
rejoicing friend but the worm; O, thou cold hand of
death, unlock for me then the portals of eternal life,
that whilst my body rests in its bed of earth, my soul
may recline in the bosom of God! #

" Life ! we've been long together,
Through pleasant and cloudy weather;
'Tis hard to part, when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;

Say not, Good night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me good morning."

THE END.

WHAT IS SAID OF IT.

Dr. C. H. Fowler, Editor of " The Chris-
tian Advocate," New York, says :
"'The Royal Path of Life' is open before
me. Its practical and suggestive subjects in-
vite attention, and the manner in which they
are handled retains it. Its principles and sug-
gestions applied will secure success.

)"One idea to a man in the beginning of
life is worth many books. This one book will
furnuk many ideas. Brother man, read it."

President W. H. Allen, M.D., LL.D.,
of Girard College, Philadelphia, says :
"I have examined 'The Royal Path of
Life,' and noted its direction, the lands
through which it passes, and the end to which
it leads. It is a straight path, and the young
man who walks in it will not go astray in
crooked ways. It is a safe path, and the
young woman who walks in it will not be
caught in a snare nor fall into a pit. It is
the path of wisdom, in whose right hand is
length of days, and in her left hand riches
and honor. In a word, the book is full of
wise precepts for the conduct of life, gath-
ered from numerous sources, and clothed in
a perspicuous style."

J. Grier Ralston, D. D., LL.D., Prin-
cipal of Oakland Female Institute,
Norristown, Pa., says :
"lam much obliged to you for calling my
attention to ' The Royal Path of Life.' It is
a book of rare excellence. I have read it
with interest and profit, and think it will be
found attractive alike to the old and young,
to the grave and gay. The subjects of which
it treats are all practical, and are so discussed
as to furnish lessons for daily use. The spirit
of the book is eminently Christian, its doc-
trines evangelical, its style crisp and lucid, its
language direct and vigorous, and all its teach-
ings pure and elevating. It does not contain
a dull or prosy page. Any one who reads the
first four chapters will want to finish the book.

" While I give it my hearty indorsement, I
cordially recommend it to the general reader
as highly entertaining and instructive, and
especially to the young as a judicious coun-
sellor, a safe guide, and a discreet friend."

L. Marks, D.D., Pastor of the Hanovear
Street Presbyterian Church, Wil-
mington, Del., says :
"'The Royal Path of Life' embraces a
large number of important topics discussed in
a brief but able manner. The work abounds
in noble sentiments well expressed, and de-
serves a place in every family library. The
publishers have done their part of the work
well. The book will doubtless meet with a
ready sale, and be read with interest and with
profit. It affords us pleasure to give it our hearty
indorsement."

W. M. Stanford, M. S., Pastor of the
Fulton Street Evangelical Church,
Pittsburgh, Pa., says:

" In journeying observingly along ' The
Royal Path of Life,' a number of marked ex-
cellences strike the attention : First, the quite
successful blending of the theoretical with the
practical. Secondly, the natural order of the
many subjects, as so many steps in 'The
Royal Path,' exhibits mature judgment in
selection and exceptional wisdom in arrange-
ment, one step always preparing the traveller
for the next above it. ThirdlyfKn the treat-
ment of these subjects we notice the beauti-
ful blending of two indispensable qualities,
namely, brevity and perspicuity. It gives the
kernel without the hull, the wheat without the
chaff. Finally, its thought is ever pure, fresh,
and vigorous, presented in the most pleasing,
clear, and forcible diction, leaving with the
careful reader a lasting impression and strong
resolutions to reach a higher plane of life.

"The 'Royal Path' should be in every
family, and would be a happy substitute fo7
much of the trifling and corrupting ' Book-
Furniture ' that to-day decks the centre-tables
of so many American homes."

O. C. Pope, Editor of " The Baptist
Herald," Houston, Texas, says:

" I most cordially and heartily commend
* The Royal Path of Life.' It is a book that
will be read by the great masses of the people,
and, next to the Bible, is the most valuable
book ever printed in the English language.
It is a thoroughly practical guide in the every-
day walks of life."

Dr. Geo. H. Wbitney. Principal of the
^Hackettstown, N. J., Collegiate In-
stitute, and Author of the cele-
brated " Handbook of Bible Geog-
raphy," says *

" There are many hooks ; good, bad, and
indifferent. The ' Royal Path of Life ' is a
good book ; one of the best that I know of for
the Family. It is good to read by the hour,
and especially good to pick up and read in
those odd minutes that so many people waste
because they have nothing else to do. This
book will bless wherever it goes. Wlioever
buys it is sure to read it."

Rev. Dr. Swan, Pastor of the Kinney
St. Baptist Chuich, Newark, N. J.,
says :

"'The Royal Path of Life' is elegantly
bound and very attractive. The selections
indicate a high range of action and great
purity of mind. The combination of the
best thoughts of great minds, in one book, in-
troduces one to a small library at once. Few
can afford the luxury of many books by many
authors, and therefore a book like this meets a
great want in those whose ability is limited in
the matter of purchase. No one confers a better
service on humanity than the man who perpet-
uates pure thoughts. 1 wish the book success."

Rev. Wm. T. Findley, Pastor of the
Central Presbyterian Church, New-
ark, N. J., says :
^ I accord with the above recommendation
by Dr. Swan, and wish the agent success in
procuring subscribers for the work, as thereby
he not only circulates a literature which is
profitable to the readers, but aids himself in
self-education, which is the noble object of
his pursuit."

President Edward Brooks, Ph. D., of
the State Normal School, Millers-
ville, Pa., says :

" I regard the * Royal Path of Life ' as an
interesting and valuable book for all classes
of readers. "

Rev. A. H. Tuttle, Pastor of the M. E.
Church, Hack etts town, N. J., says:

" After careful examination of 4 The Royal
Path of Life' I am prepared to commend it
most heartily as wort ny of a place in every
family. » It is pure, suggestive, inspiring, and
full of the flavor of the '.iospel. It is indeed
a faithful exhibit of :he Royal Path."

Prof. R. H. Skinner, A. M., Principal
f of the Wilmington Conference
Academy, Dover, Del., says: r

" The desire for a successful life is a fixed
principle in the human breast. Youth looks
ahead to it ; manhood reaches out after it ;
age clings to it ; all want it ; most will work
for it, but how to attain to it is the problem.

" I have perused with care the ' Royal Path
of Life,' and find it brimful of earnest words,
wise counsels, and valuable helps. I heartily
commend it to those who aspire to success.
The youth who reads this book will find new
hopes arising in his mind, new possibilities
opening up before him ; the faint-hearted is
encouraged; the tardy is quickened; the
baffled resolves anew to win."

President A. Holbrook, National Nor-
mal School, Lebanon, O., says :

" ' The Royal Path of Life ' is a valuable
book, and will take a place with ' The Book '
on every centre-table or book-shelf. It is not
an easy task to find readable material on
moral topics, but the compilers have solved
the problem ; and this book, once taken up,
the succession of interesting themes will hold
the attention of even the casual reader."

Rev. J. B. Quigg, P. E., M. E. Church,

Wilmington, Del., says:

" I have examined the ' Royal Path of Life,'
and consider it an excellent book, full of in-
teresting and profitable reading. It is very
much prized in my family."

Rev. A. B. Morey, Pastor Fifth Pres-
byterian Church, Cincinnati, O.,
says:

« « The Royal Path of Life ' is rich in bright,
beautiful thoughts. It leads one up into a
better life. It is suggestive, stimulating,
strengthening. It ought to brighten up many
a home. It will come like a gleam of sun-
shine across any life whose pathway is rough
and shaded."

Hon. Gustavus J. Orr, Commissioner
of Public Instruction, Atlanta, Ga.,

says :

" I am satisfied that 1 The Royal Path of
Life ' is a book of merit, and its perusal will
benefit all readers. It is especially adapted
for the use of families, and those who have
few books, as it almost comprises a library by
1 itself."

Rev. J. C. Roller, Pastoi of St. Mat-
thew's Lutheran Church, Hanover,
Pa., says :

" ' The Royal Path of Life ' is a book of
real and permanent worth. I have examined
it carefully and read some of the selections
with great satisfaction. The subjects treated
of, although trite and familiar, have fresh and
living interest, because of the authors' pure
style, noble thoughts, earnest Christian spirit,
well-chosen illustrations, and admirable les-
sons. Every family who can afford to buy
even only a few Jaooks, will find this one well
worth their possession; and if every young
man and woman were to read and ponder it,
their characters could not fail to reap the bra-
cing benefits of its chaste and vigorous senti-
ments. Whoever gives it a wide circulation
is a benefactor to the community."

Rev. Jacob Sechler, Pastor of the
Manheim Reformed Charge, Han-
over, Pa., says:

"The book called 'The Royal Path of
Life ' is one of the most interesting and edify-
ing works that has ever been offered to the
public. The reading of the book has an en-
chanting and fascinating influence upon the
human mind. Having examined the work, I
can in good faith recommend it to the aged
and young, and assure them, if they secure
this book, and read it carefully, they will
never regret the money they gave for it."

Rev. Henry B. Strodach, Pastor of
St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Norris-
town, Pa., says:

" The appearance of the book ' The Royal
Path of Life ' at once leads us to expect that
in so beautiful a casket will be found a pre-
cious pearl; and our expectation is not only
realized, but much surpassed, for we find not
only one but one hundred and fourteen gems.
For each article, in the purity of its diction,
the elevation of its tone, and the simplicity of
its style, is not only a literary gem, but, with
its ennobling contents and influence, a moral
power for good. To specify any one special
article would be to institute comparisons, and
comparisons are notably invidious. Suffice it to
say that any youth or maiden, man or woman,
who reads it will be the better for having had
the book in his or her possession ; and that, in
these days of ' much book-making,' is high, but
surely, in this instance, well-deserved praise."

| Isaac Gibson, Rector of St John a
J Church, Norristcwn, Pa., Bays:

" I have examined ' The Royal Path of
Life,' and find it well calculated to impress
us with those feelings and purposes which
belong to a noble and successful manhood
and womanhood. With singular aptness it
presents the leading influences which tend to
form a well-rounded and robust character,
and with great clearness describes those vir-
tues and graces which are at once its orna-
ments and its fruits."

Elder C. H. Forney HarrJsburg, Pa^
Editor of "The Church Advocate,"
says :

"A glance at the tabJc nt contents at once
shows what this book i.s, and also the eminent
fitness of the sub-title — Aims and Aids to
Success and Happiness. The work is admi-
rable in spirit, thoroughly evangelical in teach-
ing, and sound in moral principles. No book
recently issued from the press, that has come
under our notice, would we rather put into
every family than this one. it is capital in
every respect."

James Roberts, Pastor of the Presby-
terian Church, Coatee vule, Pa., says:
" Those who buy * The Royal Path of Life *
will find that it contains entertaining and in-
structive reading, suggestive and helpful to
those who are thoughtfully marking out the
path of life for themselves and friends."

Daniel J. Hauer, DD, Pastor of the
Manheim Evangelical Lutheran
Charge, York Co, Pa says:
" Having given the book entitled ' The
Royal Path of Life* a cursory reading, I
found much to interest, edify, and incite the
mind to high and noble aspirations, and I
therefore commend it to the public .\t worthy
of patronage."

Professor Wm. Grim, A. M. on New
Market, Shenandoan Cc.Va , says:
" From a cursory examination of 1 The Royal
Path of Life,' I unhesitatingly declare it a book
valuable alike to old and young, v>. guide to the
latter and a source of unfailing consolation to
the former — worthy a place besMe the sacred
volume in the library and at the fireside of
every Christian family."

Rev. A. B. Sterner, Pastor of Trinity
Reformed Church, Norristown, Pa.,
says:

" I have carefully read your work entitled
* The Royal Path of Life,' and wish to ex-
press my high appreciation of it. I regard it
as one of the few books that will be found at
once deeply interesting and highly instruct-
ive to the general reader. It is both soundly
metaphysical and eminently practical. Its
style is lofty \ pleasing and beautiful ; its dic-
tion pure and plain; its tone throughly
Christian. Although its pages are made up
of distinct and somewhat disconnected es-
says, each complete in itself, it reads like a
romance. But while it is thus fascinating, we
have the additional satisfaction of useful
knowledge, acquired at each step of our
progress. We need not hasten to unravel
the story, as alas ! we are only too prone to
do when perusing works of fiction. We may
linger as long as we wish by the way ; for
each essay furnishes material for much solid
thought and profitable meditation. 'l

Rev. J. Dyson, Pastor of Oak Street
M. E. Church, Norristown, Pa., says :

" I have read ' The Royal Path of Life,'
and unhesitatingly recommend it — a book
that will be read with interest and profit by
every one fortunate in securing a copy. I
give my full endorsement to all the very ex-
cellent things said concerning it by Dr. Rals-
ton, the Rev. Mr. Gibson, and others."

Rev. B. F. Bohner, Pastor of the
Evangelical Church, Norristown,
Pa., says :

" I have examined and partly read 1 The
Royal Path of Life.' It is a good book, very
readable, and of the best moral tendency.
The old as well as the young can only be
profited by subscribing for and reading a
copy of the work. It ought to have a very
wide circulation."

President I. C. Pershing, D. D., of
Pittsburgh Female College, says :

" A somewhat hurried examination of 'The
Royal Path of Life ' has left a most delightful
impression. The style is simple, clear and
often beautiful, the tone elevated, the aim of
the writers excellent. I cordially commend
the book as one worthy a place m every
home. Its perusal will bring both pleasure
and profit."

Rev. S. Siegfried, Pastor of the Bap.
tist Church, Norristown, Pa., says:

" ' The Royal Path of Life ; or, Aims and
Aids to Success and Happiness,' is just what
its title indicates. It is a book for the home,
to be read and studied. Its articles are gems,
and are edifying to all the members of the
household — the grave and the gay will find a
portion in season. The ambition, enlighten-
ed and enthused by such a counselor as this
book, will aspire to the chaste and beautiful
in the ' royal path of life,' and will find ' hap-
piness'and achieve 'success.' I cheerfully
add my commendation of its merits."

President J. H. A. Bomherger, D. D.,
of Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pa.,

says:

"Although I have been unable to give
' The Royal Path of Life ' more than a brief
and cursory examination, its aim and ruling
spirit have impressed me favorably. The es-
says are upon most important, practical sub-
jects, written in a style attractive for most
readers, and offer wholesome counsel and
profitable entertainment. Many a winter
evening hour can be usefully and pleasantly
employed in their perusal."

Professor George R. Thompson, Prin-
cipal of the Friends' School, Wil-
mington, Bel., says :

" After a somewhat hasty examination of
' The Royal Path of Life,' I am impressed
with the fidelity with which the authors have
endeavored to further their design of 1 stimu-
lating the youth to noble thoughts and ac-
tions.' If they have not marked out the ex-
act limits of ' the royal path of life,' they have
at least set no false guide-posts by the way.

" The work treats briefly, but interestingly,
of such old-fashioned topics as ' Integrity,'
' Industry,' ' Slander,' 'Vanity,' etc. — subjects
well worth consideration in these days of
loose moral notions. It may not appeal
strongly to the tastes of the professedly intel-
lectual class of the community, but for the
people it will have solid attractions. That its
contents are so varied will be a great recom-
mendation to those who have not the means
to purchase many books. But perhaps a still
greater recommendation is that it contains
nothing that parents need fear to have their
children read, and much that will interest,
instruct and guide them."

Rev. Thomas W, Humes, S. T. D.,
President of the East Tennessee
State University, says:

" I have no hesitation in expressing the
opinion that its general circulation will tend
decidedly to promote the cause of virtue, the
welfare of families, and the vital power of
religion among the people; and I therefore
recommend it to the public."

Rev. S. R. Preston, Pastor of the Pres-
byterian Church, Athens, Tenn.,
says:

" This book is full of practical truth. It is
at once entertaining and instructive. The
conception is fine, the religious tone is eleva-
ting, language concise and pointed. While
pointing steadily to ' The Royal Path of Life,'
it fixes the attention upon the breakers, where
so many are dashed to pieces. It is a good
book for everybody, but especially for the
young. After a thorough examination, I can
cordially recommend it to every family as a
valuable addition to the home library."

Rev. A.W.Jones, B.B., President of
the Memphis Conference Female
Institute* Jackson, Tenn., says :

" 'The Royal Path of Life' is, in my judg-
ment, an admirable book, very attractive and
useful. It is well suited to the family circle,
and if carefully read will have a happy and
elevating influence on all the relations of life.
It has my earnest commendation. I would
like to see it published in a number of small
volumes, for the use of Sunday schools."

Rev. A. J. Battle, B. B., President
Mercer University, Macon, Ga., says :

"I have read with much interest the vol-
ume entitled 'The Royal Path of Life,' and
regard it as a valuable source of instruction,
especially to the young. It contains a great
variety of practical lessons, inculcating much
religious, moral and secular wisdom, essential
to character and success. I wish that all our
young men might carry its wise maxims into
practice."

Rev. W. E. Bass, B.B., President Wes-
leyan Female College, Macon, Ga.,
says : (

" From a cursory examination I am per-
suaded that 'The Royal Path of Life ' is a most
valuable work, and worthy of a place in every
Christian family. I most heartily commend it."

Prof. H. C. Irhy, A.M., of the South-
western Baptist University, Jack-
son, Tenn., says :

" 'The Royal Path of Life' is full of read-
able matter. Indeed, two or three essays oj
best selections will give food to the reflective
mind that will be a full compensation for the
cost of the whole book.''''

Rev. S. R- Gwaltney, B. B., President
Judson Institute, Marion, Alabama,
says : i

" ' The Royal Path of Life ' modestly pro-
fesses, in the preface, to be a 'counselor to those
who have become indifferent to life's purposes,
and a comfort to those who have long traveled
this royal path,' ' to stimulate youth to noble
thoughts and actions, and lead them on to
honor and happiness.'

" The topics discussed, the treatment, the
style, the earnest spirit, all attest the fidelity
with which this worthy aim has been kept in
view. I cordially commend the book."

Th© Rev. Joseph H. Martin, B.B., Pas-
tor of First Presbyterian Church,
Atlanta, Ga., says:

" Before reading ' The Royal Path of Life '
I concluded, from a hasty glance, that it was
merely a collection of moral essays on the
topics treated of, without a pervading tone of
piety and religious principle.

" But, on examining the work, I find that
the spirit of the Christian religion is diffused
through it. In its views, precepts and coun-
sels it substantially agrees with the Bible,
which perfectly points out the royal path of
life, the highway of holiness, cast up by the
great King, that leads to immortality. Hence,
I have no hesitation in recommending the
book as a valuable storehouse of reflections
and suggestions with regard to the subjects
discussed."

Rev. H. R. Raymond, B. B., Pastor
Presbyterian Church, and Presi-
dent Marion Female Seminary, Ma-
rion, Ala., Says:

" 'The Royal Path of Life' has been ex-
amined by me, with such care as my limited
time would allow, and I feel free to say that
it has impressed me favorably.

" It seems well calculated to do good in the
family, being healthful in its moral and relig-
ious teachings ; and I can commend it as a
useful addition to any one's library."

President H. B. Brown, of the Indiana
Normal School, says :

" The book entitled 4 The Royal Path of
Life ' contains more valuable information for
the money than any other book published. After
reading, no one would regret having made the
purchase. It should be in every family."

Rev. J. Kelley, Pastor of St. Joseph's
Roman Catholic Church, near Wil-
mington, Del., says:

M I believe the book called ' The Royal Path
of Life ' to be highly useful, and admirably
adapted to promote good manners and the
practice of the moral virtues."

Rev. Clement Lowery, Pastor cf the
Roman Catholic Church of Cedar
Rapids, says:

"After a careful examination of the work
here presented, I take pleasure in giving it a
hearty welcome amongst literary works of de-
served and esteemed merits, and wish it a suc-
cessful and rapid introduction."

Joseph Shortlidge, Principal of the
Maplewood Institute, Concordville,
Pa., says :

" The able manner in which ' The Royal
Path of Life' treats of the well-chosen topics
embodied in its pages will make it a house-
hold treasure."

The Very Rev. Father Patrick Reilly, ;
V. G., Pastor of St. Mary'3 Catholic
Church, Wilmington, Del., says:

" The book is unobjectionable in the first
place, and instructive in the second."

Rev. James Murphy, Pastor of the
Roman Catholic Church of Toronto,
Iowa, says :

" ' The Royal Path of Life,' a literary work
lately issued from the press, is well worth
reading by each, and many of our fellow
countrymen in particular, and by persons
skilled in English literature in general. Its
pages abound with original thoughts and men-
tal culture, which I am certainly convinced
must create for the work a vast and ready

Kabbi Dr. Lilienthal, Mound Street
Synagogue, Cincinnati, O., says:
" It is with great pleasure that I recommend
the book entitled ■ The Royal Path of Life/
It is full of practical wisdom, stern, frank, ex-
cellent maxims, and reminds me of the prov-
erbs of the Bible. The book should adorn
every family table. Young and old should
read it, ponder over the excellent essays, and
try to come up to the teachings. It contains
no sectarian doctrine. It is human in the
best sense of the word; and if its rules are
carried out, peace and good-will among men,
charity and love toward all, would be thereby
largely advanced. Again I heartily and sin-
cerely recommend this book as a standard
book for eveiy household."

Rev. W. H. Thomas, D.D., of Chicago,
111., Author of "The Origin and
Destiny of Man," says:
" ' The Royal Path of Life ' possesses the
merit of discussing, in a brief, practical way, a
large number of important topics, making it a
valuable work for the home and the fireside.
The chapter on courtship alone, if placed in
the hands of youth at the proper time, is worth
far more than the cost of the whole work.v

John G. McWyn, A. M., Principal of
Racine Academy.Racine, Wis., says:

" I wish those who desire a good book would
subscribe for this one, ' The Royal Path of
Life.' It is full of thoughts beautiful and
grand, and it will influence those who read it
only for good. The young men and young
women of our country ought to form their
characters under the influence such a book
will exert."

Rev. James G. Dougherty, of Ottawa,
Kansas, says :

" Many books need a recommendation, but
no intelligent person can examine 4 The Royal
Path of Life ' without feeling that, like every
good man, this excellent book is its own best
recommendation. It gathers up and presents
in pleasing form the wisdom of the ages on
the most homely, and so the most practical,
themes. It will be found a wise counsellor in
every family ''

Gen. Joshua L. Chamberlain, Ex-Gov.
of Maine and Pres. of Bowdoin Col-
lege.

" I have examined with great interest the
book entitled 4 The Royal Path of Life,' and
find the subjects and sentiments are such as
are worthy of the best treatment, and of the
attention of every thoughtful person.''

Rev. C.W. Bradlee, Pastor M. E. Church,
Alfred, Maine.

"No one can read ' The Royal Path of
Life ' without being made purer and better
for its perusal. It should bear a prominent
place in every household.''

Rev. B. G. Blaisdell, Pastor Pleasant St.
Church, Springvale, Maine.

" I have examined ' The Royal Path of
Life ' with intense interest and satisfaction.
It is pure and elevating, and must prove a
blessing to every one who reads it. It gives
me pleasure to add my testimony to its in-
trinsic worth."

Rev. Geo. G. Hamilton, Pastor Univer-
salist Church, Yarmouth^ Maine.

41 It is with pleasure that I recommend
' The Royal Path of Life ' as belonging to the
better class of literature. Its healthy, in-
vigorating pages will prove a great help to
every one striving to reach 'that * Royal Life '
which stands as the crown of earthly study
and labor."

Rev. W. H. Morrison, Pastor Universal-
is! Church, Warren, Mass., says :

"'The Royal Path of Life ' is a perfect
mine of the choicest thoughts from the great-
est authors, and no one who can purchase
the book should lose the opportunity of do-
ing so."

Rev. Geo. W. Phillips, Pastor Plymouth
Congreg'l Church, Worcester, Mass.,
says:

" 4 The Royal Path of Life ' is a book of
real value, and I welcome it as a healthy

antidote to the bad morals and wor.^e spirit
with which, not a little, popular reading mat-
ter is tainted. The book is written by men
of cultivation and mental vigor. It will
work towards industry, social purity and
piety."

Rev. E. E. Thomas, Pastor Bap't Church,
Woonsocket, R. I., says :

" I have with pleasure examined ' The
Royal Path of Life,' and find it to be a much
better book than I supposed. It is full of
practical instruction. The authors seem to
have gleaned the very best thoughts that have
ever been uttered upon the subjects treated
therein. Those who study these subjects
carefully, will find that they have entered
upon a path that truly leads to the King's
highway of knowledge and holiness. The
style is exceptional ; the price reasonable,
and those who purchase will find therein a
treasure-house of things new and old."

Rev. J. F. Forbes, Pastor Cong'l Churo-h,
Warren, Mass., says ;

" The authors of ' The Royal Path of Life '
have gleaned the choicest thoughts from a
large range of standard writers, and woven
them together in 114 essays, each complete
in itself. This compilation does them great
credit. I can recommend. the book to evesy
household."

From the Rt. Rev. P. T. O'Reilly,
Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church
at Springfield, Mass.

"I have a copy of 4 The Royal Path of Life*
and after a very careful examination, do
cheerfully commend it to every household"

Rev. A. B. Kendig, D. D., Pastor Trinity
M. E. Church, Worcester, Mass., says:

" I can endorse the recommendations given
1 The Royal Path of Life ' by other distin-
guished clergymen, and if it shall divert for
one hout the attention of the young and old
from those poisonous streams, from which
they drink disease and death, it will prove a
blessing."

Professor Thos. O- Summers, D.D.,
of Vanderbilt University, for
many years Editor of the " Nash-
ville Christian Advocate," says:
" We have examined * The Royal Path of
Life ' pretty closely, and consider it a valuable
work. It describes the domestic relations, the
pursuits of life, morals and religion, virtues
and vices, in a very engaging manner. It is
« mosaic, ingeniously wrought, comprising
thoughts and extracts from all sources. We
wish every young person would read and
ponder the sections on Farm Life, Matrimony,
Courtship, Prayer, Luck and Pluck — indeed
every section is replete with words of wisdom,
which, being followed, will lead into 1 The
Royal Path of Life,' ending in a glorious im-
mortality."

Professor Aldine S. Kieffer, Editor
of " The Musical Million," Dayton,
Va., says:

" I have given ' The Royal Path of Life ' a
somewhat extended examination, and feel jus-
tified in adding my testimonial to that of others,
in pronouncing it a valuable work, alike for
the student and the general reader. It embraces
a variety of subjects, all of which are treated
in a masterly manner. Its illustrations are very
artistic. It is one of those books which will
do 1 good and not evil,' and as such, I most
heartily recommend it to the public."

Prederiok Cline, Gterman-Baptist
Preacher (Dunkard), of Rooking-
ham County, Va., Says.
"'The Royal Path of Life' is just such a
book as I have been wanting for some time
for my family, and, after a careful examina-
tion, believe it would be a welcome guest in
any home circle."

Rev. O. R. Hendrickson, D.D., Pastor
of the First Baptist Churoh, Jack-
son, Term., says:

After giving * The Royal Path of Life ' a
careful examination, I can give it a most
hearty commendation. It is of great practi-
cal value to the young, and none are too old
to profit by it. The essays are most admira-
bly written, and embody the most important
moral truths. No more valuable book, the
Bible excepted, can be presented by parents to
their sons and daughters than 1 The Royal
Path of life: "

Dr. S. Henkel, Editor of "Our
Church Paper," and Pastor of the
Emanuel Lutheran Church, New
Market, Va., says:

" We had occasion to examine to a consi-
derable extent the work entitled ' The Royal
Path of Life,' and found it a work admirably
adapted to the object for which it is designed.
It deals in a very easy, simple, wholesome and
instructive manner with the different relations
of life. Its general tenor is moral, healthy,
and ennobling, No one can read it without
benefit or profit. The arrangement of the sub-
jects of which it treats so pleasantly, is natural
and good, carrying the mind and affections
along by degrees, through the varied stages
and relations of life. There is so much good
about it that we feel as if there should be a
copy in every household."

Rev. J. P. Kemper, Pastor of the
Baptist Church, Harrisonburg,
Va., says:

" I have read, carefully, several selections
from ' The Royal Path of Life,' and am much
pleased with the work. Its tone is excellent
and pure, its instruction valuable and much
needed. I hope it may accomplish the good
for which it is so well adapted."

J. Newton Fries, Professor of Latin
and Greek, in Shenandoah Sem-
inary, Dayton, Va., says:
" After having examined ' The Royal Path
of Life,' I would say, unhesitatingly, that it is
a book worthy of the careful perusal of every
individual, young or old. Treating on a vari-
ety of subjects, as it does, only the gems of
thought have been presented, in a manner at
once pleasing and instructive. The moral
tone of the book is, undoubtedly, of a high
order, yet without presenting sectarian views
in any particular."

Rev. J. W. Bledsoe, Pastor of the
M. E. Church South, Charlottes-
ville, Va., says:

" Having read, with interest, ' The Roval
Path of Life,' it affords me pleasure to recom-
mend it. Its tone and spirit are such as will
be readily approved, and its suggestive value
will commend itself to every thoughtful and
intelligent reader "

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